The Opinions - Trump’s Bargain With Putin Is ‘Shameful’

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Turning our back on Ukraine would only weaken America.The Trump administration may be considering negotiating a peace deal with Russia that would end the war in Ukraine. “No American president in the last 80 years and probably 100 years before that would have made this bargain,” Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, tells the Opinion columnist David French.Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch at [e-mail]. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. I'm David French, and I'm an opinion columnist at the New York Times. Trump's foreign policy strategy so far has been largely to alienate or attack America's long-standing allies while embracing Vladimir Putin. I think we're all coming to terms with Donald Trump's turn against Ukraine. A dictator without elections, Zelensky better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. Got to move, got to move fast. Ukrainian President Volodemar Zelensky is appealing to the Trump administration as the U.S.

looks to thaw its relationship with Russia. We're successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia, something all admit that only Trump is going to be able to do in the Trump administration. I've been deeply alarmed by this turn of events. then the best person I could think of to talk to about this with is Corey Shockey. She's the director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. She also worked at the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the National Security Council.

Corey and I have had some conversations on foreign policy before, and I wanted to get her take specifically on Trump's moves towards Russia and against Ukraine. And I'm going to ask her if the Republican Party has really permanently changed, its foreign policy position. Corey, thank you so much for joining me. It's a great pleasure, my friend. You're joining us after a week in which we probably have seen

more dramatic diplomatic developments in the Ukraine conflict in one week than we've seen arguably in the previous couple of years. But before we dive into all of the twists and turns, it might be good to kind of step back for a minute and remind listeners. why so many of us care about the fate of the nation of Ukraine, about the Ukrainian people,

why we see this as a matter not just of obvious national security for the Ukrainians, but for the United States as well. Yeah, so I would say two things, David. The first is that there is honor in standing alongside people fighting for their freedom and human dignity. and the United States has for the last hundred years seen American foreign policy as making our country safer and more prosperous by helping support and expand freedom in other countries because free societies fight a lot of wars, they don't fight each other, right? The example of two democratic countries fighting each other is isolation.

and Britain, a couple of shots fired over fishing. So Ukraine's safety, portends greater safety, not just in Europe, but beyond. Well, let's talk just a bit about Vladimir Putin's ambitions, because I think a lot of people consider this war as extremely limited, that in other words, if Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine because he has a special sort of animosity towards Ukrainian independence, that this is a Ukraine-specific issue, and that there isn't really a wider sort of implication of a Ukrainian defeat. I agree with you that that's a mistake. It is true that Putin believes there is no such country as Ukraine, there is no such culture as Ukraine, and therefore they deserve to be subjugated by Russia. It's not just

Ukraine. He thinks the same about NATO members, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. And Russia has historically thought that about Poland as well. So what we saw Russia doing in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine is a pattern across the last 15 years. And I don't think we should have confidence that conceding Ukraine to Russian villainy is going to slake Russia's appetite. So what is the actual state of the war right now, Corey? So the perception is that Russia is moving forward slowly but surely, but at terrible cost to itself. We know Ukraine is under pressure. We know Russia is losing a lot of men. But what's the actual state of the conflict? Is there a way we could say sort of definitively who is winning, who is losing at this moment?

No, we can't definitively say it, but here's the tale of the tape. Russia is in possession of Crimea and much of the Donbass, the oblasts of Lehansk, Donetsk, and Zaporisia. Ukraine is in possession of a small chunk of Russian territory. Russia is slowly grindingly making advances further into Ukrainian territory at about half the pace they were in the fall. So their momentum is slow and is slowing further. Russia has taken more than 600,000 casualties and is having to pay increasing prices in order to get recruits. But North Korea has lived. lifted the constraint on Russian manpower by offering their own soldiers to fight.

Iran and China are providing commercial and war materials to Russia. Even with all of that, Ukraine imposed 600,000 casualties on Russia and is fighting the Russian army to a large standstill. For 4% of the U.S. defense budget in the last three years, That's a great investment for the security of the West. So let's kind of walk through the options going forward. What are Ukrainian defense capabilities if the Trump administration exerts maximum leverage, in other words, tries to strip from Ukraine all U.S. support and funding?

Can Ukraine stay in the field without us? Yes, they can, but they won't be able to fight the way they are fighting now. The truth is that the sand is slipping through the hourglass for both Ukraine and Russia. Russia has used about half of the entire tank and armored personnel carrier stockpile that the Soviet Union has had since the 1940s. And the main way they are imposing damage on Ukraine is long-range strikes on civilian population centers, on energy, they're trying to freeze and darken Ukraine into submission. And without American assistance, Ukraine won't have the air defenses to protect their civilian population. They probably will still have the ability to fight on the conventional battlefield on the front. Two-thirds of the Russian

casualties are now being imposed by drones, and those are domestically produced by Ukraine's defense industry. It's not necessarily a positive sign, though. I mean, what it tells you that drones are being so destructive is that Ukrainian infantry tanks are not being more effective. So into this situation steps the Trump administration. And over the last week, we've seen really a frenzy of activity, diplomatic activity globally, a changed posture towards our own allies, a change posture towards Russia. And let's just separate these things into separate strands. So let's talk about the Trump administration's posture right now towards Russia. I believe there was a Russian lawmaker who said after the initial Trump-Pooten called that the blockade has been broken,

meaning a diplomatic blockade. So what is the substance of the Trump overture towards Russia? I certainly think Trump policy is trending towards what he views as a great power condominium. You know, the U.S. and Russia making deals about European security without the involvement of European countries. And the most recent indicator of that is the Trump administration refusing to allow the term Russian aggression be used in describing. in a G7 communique. So in the communique of the most powerful economies of the world. So I think the early indications are that the Trump administration is prepared to compromise the sovereignty of Ukraine in order to benefit Russia.

And it's shameful. No American president in the last 80 years and probably 100 years before that would have made this bargain. The economic sanctions on Russia really are constricting, and Russia probably cannot sustain the war effort through 2025 in its entirety. And that means that Donald Trump is about to lose Ukraine and benefit Russia when Russia is a major destroyer of the international order that has made the United States safe and prosperous. So we've also seen obvious overtures towards Russia. We have seen the hint or implication that we could begin to see a new economic relationship between the United States and Russia. At the same time, we have seen this extraordinary turn against our

European allies. J.D. Vance goes and gives a speech in which he's scolding many of them on free speech crowns, which I'm no defender of Western European free speech regimes, but relative to the gravity of Russian aggression into Europe strikes me as disproportionate attention. But what is the current Trump administration posture towards our allies? What is the posture towards NATO right now? I think it is unchanged in kind, only in degree from the first Trump term. President Trump has long mistakenly believed that America's allies are leeches on the throat of American strength instead of the major source of American strength internationally. No dominant power has ever had as much voluntary assistance as the United States gets from its allied countries

for things we want to do all over the world. And it's really shocking that, that President Trump is squandering the goodwill that American idealism and American policy have bought for our country in the last 80 years. Literally everything we try and do in the world is going to get harder and more expensive because countries aren't going to trust us to try and advance common interests. So let me try to steal man a Trump position here and get your reaction to it. So, well, look, we understand that the Western Alliance has benefited us in many ways, but also we believe that we've been exploited by the Western Alliance. A percentage of NATO countries don't abide by the 2% target of defense spending. They've had more than two years since the Ukraine

invasion to really ramp up their own domestic arms production, and many of them haven't done it sufficiently. And we have a giant and rising challenge in China. We're powerful, but, but we're not infinitely powerful. It makes sense to begin to move our emphasis of our national defense strategy to the Far East, where we're more vulnerable to arising China, and leave Europe more for the Europeans who have the capability to step up and support Ukraine. They just haven't done it yet. And if they really care, they're just going to have to do it now. That is true as far as it goes. Europeans collectively have an economy 10 times the size of Russia. I mean, if the Ukrainian army can fight the Russians to a near standstill, imagine what

Poland and Finland together could do. Right. Right. Russia would lose that war, unquestionably. But that's not all of the story, because if we want to get to an economy of scale that affects China's choices, we actually need the help of European countries. We need their export controls, we need their market access provisions, we need their investment restrictions, we need their willingness to send military forces to the Pacific. And it is increasingly doubtful whether Europeans who are so fearful about abandonment by us will believe they have the bandwidth to do anything we need them to do if they don't feel like we're willing to to help them when they are frightened as they are frightened now.

Well, and let me ask you about the current state of what passes for negotiations. We have seen a meeting between American and Russian diplomats. Ukraine has not been at the table yet. Zelensky has indicated he's not going to consider agreement an agreement unless Ukraine is part of it. But there have been some talking points, some sort of basic provisions or outlines of a deal between the U.S. and Russia, the outlines appear to be that the U.S. is acknowledging that it is not feasible to ask Russia to give up any territory that it has already taken, that it seems to be willing to guarantee that Ukraine won't join NATO, and then there has been a talk of forcing elections in Ukraine.

And let's take these things sort of in reverse order. Let's talk about the forcing of elections. And the reason why I want to bring that up, Corey, is because just in my, life, you know, talking to politically informed citizens or who are following this, a lot of them have immediately said, and what's wrong with elections? I didn't know Zelensky isn't standing for re-election right now. What's going on? Why would we be supporting a country that's not holding elections? So let's talk about that point for a minute. Why haven't there been elections? Why would that be a problematic point of a deal to begin with? So they're not holding elections because the Ukrainian constitution, which predates Russia's invasion,

prevents the holding of elections in wartime. I would point out, Great Britain didn't hold elections during World War II. So if Zelensky's a dictator, Churchill was a dictator when fighting for Western freedom. But I think there's a second part of the argument for Ukraine, which is 20% of their country is under occupation by Russia. How do you orchestrate a free election in Russian-controlled territory where people are fearful for their lives to express their political preferences? And that's why they are not just the Zelensky government. The opposition doesn't want to hold elections during wartime because they don't see how it can be fairly constituted. It's sort of the equivalent of suggesting that Abraham Lincoln

should have held elections in the seceded states of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. How do you organize and ensure that that happens freely? And let's talk about this other point of Ukrainian neutrality. So I would say there's sort of a spectrum of Ukrainian alliance with the larger West. On the one end would be the most aligned would be a member of NATO. Then there are security guarantees that could be exclusively European, such as the Brits have indicated that they would be willing to put boots on the ground in the event of a ceasefire to try to maintain deterrence and a peace. So that would be brought into a European alliance, but not necessarily NATO. On that spectrum, is there a settlement that you think would be acceptable that would be short of bringing Ukraine into NATO, but bringing Ukraine into a European Security Alliance that would be acceptable? And also, second part of that question, when you hear the word neutrality, I think many people

think that's what's wrong with neutrality, imagining Switzerland. But there's a different definition of neutrality that Vladimir Putin has here, which is really really. subservience. But to what extent is there flexibility? Should there be flexibility and the extent to which Ukraine is brought into a Western security framework? So I think it's understandable that Western governments are anxious about including Ukraine in NATO while Ukraine is fighting NATO's major adversary, Russia, because the Article 5 guarantee NATO allies give each other is that we will consider an attack on one of us, an attack on all of us. The second thing I would say is that it was Ukraine's desire and moves towards joining the European Union that caused Russia to try and crush Ukraine.

It's not a security issue that caused Russia to try and vanquish Ukraine. It was fear that Ukraine's transition to becoming a free and prosperous Western country was so frightening to Vladimir Putin that the Russians might demand that for themselves. It's the color revolution fear that's driving Vladimir Putin. So I don't think there is a European option that puts Ukraine in safety. And, And when Ukraine was neutral in 2014, Russia invaded it for the first time. So I don't think neutrality is a stable outcome. And there's a historical precedent.

You know, West Berlin was vulnerable. It was both indefensible and crucial to defend from 1945 to German unification in 1990. And what we in the West believed was that defending Berlin was important to prevent Germany from becoming neutral because a powerful neutral state in the center of Europe was an invitation to Russian and Soviet aggression. So let's move to the GOP itself, because this is one of those areas where you will actually see Republican members of Congress openly disagree, with the president in a way that you don't on, say, many domestic issues. So you have seen some open disagreement, and maybe they don't directly criticize President Trump, but they might say,

stand with Volun Mors Zelensky, or they might openly side with Ukraine and openly talk about how Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. Is the foreign policy fight in the GOP truly settled? Is it truly over? And this is just sort of the last gasps of the Reaganite remnant. or is there still an actual fight here? Is this a situation where there is actually hope that members of Congress of Trump's own party will stand up to him on this issue? Boy, I hope and believe that the fight is not over

and that Republicans are beginning to find their footing after the disorientation of the number of ways in which, which President Trump and his administration are overturning conservative positions and policies. But I have to say, David, I do sometimes feel like a saber-tooth tiger in a tar pit as a Reagan Republican. I worry, though, that foreign policy is the area of presidential authority where the president has the widest autonomy. And that there are very few ways that Congress or civil society can prevent a president from making foreign policy decisions. Where Congress, especially Republicans in Congress,

have stronger leverage is on defense policy because that's where the authorities belong to Congress and that's where the money belongs to Congress. The last thing I'll say about the foreign policy debate in Congress is I was more hopeful before Republican senators voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard, a clear counterintelligence vulnerability for our country was placed in charge of the 18 intelligence agencies. And before so many Republicans voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Could you talk a bit more about that? Why precisely would somebody say that Tulsi Gabbard, a presidential appointee, confirmed Director of National Intelligence? Why is this person a counterintelligence risk? I think there are three reasons. The first is her judgment is unsound. She went to Syria to meet with Bashar al-Assad and denied, in spite of all 18 American intelligence agents,

agencies, which she was being nominated to lead, concluding that Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against the Syrian public. So I think putting somebody in charge of the intelligence community who willfully refuses to acknowledge the conclusions of that agency and the basis for those conclusions, means that this is somebody who is not going to make fair judgments about emergent or existing threats that we see. The second reason, I think, she should not have been confirmed. She was asked during her hearings whether Edward Snowden was a traitor to the United States of America. She refused to acknowledge that the thousands of documents revealing sources and methods of American intelligence gathering and American assessments constituted treason.

And the third reason, I think, she is unsound, is she has been parroting Russian talking points about Ukraine, about the United States for years. You hear President Biden say, well, this is Putin's war. This is Putin's fault. The United States and some of these European NATO countries are fueling this war. What you do here is warmongers arguing that we must protect Ukraine because it is a quote-unquote democracy. But they're lying. Ukraine isn't actually a democracy. All three of those things should have been the basis for rejecting the advice and consent of the Senate to her confirmation.

And will be continuing vulnerabilities and risks and reasons for America's allies, which provide the strategic depth of intelligence gathering and assessment not to share their information and their assessments with the United States. Cori, you've been very generous with your time, and I really appreciate it. But before we go on, Corey, I'm going to ask you for a prediction. Four years from now, where do you think Ukraine will be? Four years from now, I think Ukraine will still be fighting to try and push Russia out of currently occupied territories. So the war still continues four years from now? Yeah, I don't see how any Ukrainian government,

whether under President Zelensky or anybody else, could consign Ukrainian people and Ukrainian territory to the depredations and war crimes Russia has imposed on them. So I think Ukraine will continue to fight with or without, our assistance with or without European assistance until they drive Russia out of Ukraine's internationally recognized territory. Well, one thing, we're going to end here on a point of strong agreement because you and I traveled to Kiv together and we saw the will of the Ukrainian people firsthand. And I can't see them surrendering their sovereignty because Donald Trump tells

them to. Exactly right, David. Thank you, Corey. I very much appreciate your time. It was a great pleasure. I very much appreciate the good work you do. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Bishaka, Fiby Lett, Christina Samuoski, and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, Mixing, and Original Music by Isaac Jones, Sonia. Virginia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo, and Afim Shapiro.

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