In early November 2020, just a few days after he lost the presidential election, Donald Trump decided to make some hasty foreign policy moves so he wrote them on a piece of paper. “Complete withdrawal from Germany” was one of them, besides the immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Africa. America’s withdrawal from the world stage, including from Europe, was long in the making for Donald Trump, whose “America First” policy meant not just breaking from traditional allies and leaving “America alone” – a narrative which the foreign policy officials unsuccessfully tried to dismantle, but also embracing dictators all over the world.
This was not, however, the first time when Trump was pushing for a withdrawal from Europe. Throughout 2018, he insisted and was considering pulling the United States from NATO, giving a big scare to his generals, foreign policy officials and any rational political actor, not to mention the NATO allies and particularly the Eastern European countries. Trump’s disdain for NATO was notorious, as well as his inability to understand the importance of the alliance. Suffice to say, without the US there would have been no more NATO.
Moreover, Trump’s relationship to Ukraine had been shaped by Kremlin-sourced propaganda and by the disgraceful attempt to drag Ukraine into the US elections, which ultimately caused his first impeachment. In July 2019, Trump asked President Zelenskyy to do him a “favor” by announcing an investigation against his then opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, in exchange for the US military aid Ukraine needed to defend itself against Russia.
On the other hand, Trump’s subservient relationship to Putin, whom he believed over his own intelligence services when it came to Russia’s interference in the US elections, led former high-level security and intelligence officials to question whether Trump himself had been actually compromised by Russia.
“In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO…And I think Putin was waiting for that,” said in a Washington Post interview, John Bolton, Trump’s own former national security adviser, who also described how close we came to this in 2018.
None of this happened because the American people denied Trump a second term, giving us and the world an administration committed to democracy, to NATO, and to the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s aggression.
Last November another critical milestone unfolded, which could have shaped the extent of US support for Ukraine. The perspectives of a “red wave” in the midterm elections were causing shivers, especially in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine, and amongst its supporters. As future-to-be House Speaker McCarthy was questioning the support for Ukraine and how long and how far it should go, Ukraine was bracing for a GOP-controlled and MAGA-driven Congress.
None of this happened because, once again, the American people denied Republicans the expected “red wave” and rejected a series of MAGA candidates in swing states. Despite some fringe voices, the support for Ukraine remains strongly bipartisan in Congress. At this point, we don’t know how long this horrible war is going to take, but we know President Biden promised to stand for Ukraine as long as it takes.
The power of American democracy goes beyond its borders. Because the US citizens voted the way they did, the Free World is stronger today. Joe Biden’s election is one reason why Kyiv still stands today. And as presidential historian Michael Beschloss observed, Biden’s speech in Warsaw, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine, was probably one of the most powerful speeches in support of the NATO alliance: “Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire”.
