Concerned about Trump’s vice presidential nominee Vance’s resistance to Ukraine help

Senator J.D. Vance personally addressed Europe’s political and foreign policy elite in February, outlining his opposition to military help for Ukraine and his stark warning that Europe will need to depend less on the US to secure its borders.

If Vance’s remarks at the annual Munich Security Conference served as a preliminary wake-up call, fears are now loudly ringing over the continent following Republican Donald Trump’s selection of Vance as his vice presidential nominee for the U.S. election in November.

At a Munich panel discussion with Vance, co-leader of the German Green party, which is a part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s administration, Ricarda Lang said, “His selection as the running mate is worrying for Europe.”

The decision heightened concerns throughout Europe that, should Trump win back the presidency, he would sever or curtail US assistance to Kiev and force the country into peace talks to put an end to the conflict. This would give Moscow a sizable portion of Ukraine and encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to embark on more audacious military ventures.

After visiting Trump last week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote a letter to EU leaders endorsing that opinion. The former president will be “ready to act as a peace broker immediately” if he wins in November, according to Orban, a Trump ally.

Lang stated, opening a new tab on X, that Vance had made it quite evident in Munich how soon he and Trump would “deliver Ukraine to Putin”.

America’s Strategic Priorities

Putin did not represent an existential threat to Europe, according to Vance at the Munich summit, and the United States and Europe were unable to supply enough weapons to beat Russia in Ukraine.

He proposed that Asia and the Middle East should be the United States’ top strategic priorities.

“There are many evildoers in the world. Additionally, he told the conference, “I’m currently far more interested in some of the issues in East Asia than I am in Europe.”

In 2022, Vance declared, “I don’t really care what happens in Ukraine one way or the other,” during an interview with Trump friend Steve Bannon on a podcast.

He argued at Munich for a “negotiated peace” and stated that he believed Russia had a reason to negotiate.

This stands in sharp contrast to the majority of European leaders, who maintain that the West should keep providing Ukraine with significant military backing and claim they have not seen any indication that Putin is prepared to hold meaningful talks.

A bill that authorized US financing for Ukraine ultimately passed in April, but Vance voted against it. He stated in an opinion piece for the New York Times that Washington and Kiev should give up on Ukraine’s desire to redraw its borders with Russia from 1991.

The foreign policy spokesman for Scholz’s Social Democratic party, Nils Schmid, stated that after seeing Vance in Munich, he came to the conclusion that the senator considered himself to be Trump’s representative.

“He wants to stop military assistance and adopts a position on Ukraine that is even more extreme than Trump’s. He is more isolationist than Trump when it comes to foreign affairs, Schmid told Reuters.

WARNING ADVISED

However, experts advised against drawing hasty judgments about Vance, who was raised in a low-income southern Ohio household.

Since J.D. Vance is a devoted Christian, I have high hopes that he, together with Speaker Mike Johnson, will come to the conclusion that U.S.

Melinda Haring, a senior consultant for Razom for Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports Ukraine, stated that backing for the country is the only choice.

“While Vance has come out strongly against Ukraine, he hasn’t been in a top job and as vice president I expect to see his views evolve.”

A few ambassadors also sent a warning, stating that the US election was far from done.
“We must cease constructing a prophecy that will come to pass. “Neither Trump nor Biden have triumphed,” a French ambassador declared.

Since they could have to deal with Vance as the vice president of the United States, lawmakers in Ukraine were hesitant to publicly criticize him. However, some admitted to having reservations.

Vance struck Oleksiy Honcharenko, a politician with the opposing European Solidarity party, as “a very intelligent and cool-headed man” during their meeting in Munich.

Is there anything concerning Vance’s claims? Naturally. Our largest and most significant ally is the United States,” he told Reuters.

“We must remain allies and show the U.S. that Ukraine not only needs help but can help itself.”

Legislator Maryan Zablotskyy of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party claimed Russia was undermining American interests in numerous ways. A politician in the United States who supports America First, according to him, “will never be positive towards Russia”.