President Donald Trump’s invitation to Russia to invade NATO member states comes as President Trump and his followers increasingly insist that aiding Ukraine is a bad deal for the United States, and as Europe stands alone against Russia’s invasion. This aroused fears that he would have to fight against it.
President Trump, who has long viewed foreign policy in terms of money, highlighted earlier this week comparing the defense funding he claims comes from the United States to that paid by other countries. “If you don’t pay your bills, you don’t get any protection. It’s very simple,” he says. “Hundreds of billions of dollars are flowing into NATO, and that’s why they have the money,” Trump continued, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, “greatest salesman of all time” and promised to “resolve the war in Ukraine.”
Following Tucker Carlson’s sycophantic interview with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Elon Musk insisted that aid to Ukraine “must be cut off” because “Putin can’t lose.” It demonstrated broader public support. President Trump is pressuring House Republican stalwarts led by Speaker Mike Johnson to repeal the $60 billion Ukraine funding bill even though it passed in the Senate, and Marjorie Taylor Greene The lawmaker claims that “Ukraine is not the 51st state.”
Having helped trigger the withdrawal of 1,200 of the world’s largest companies from Russia two years ago in protest of a bloody invasion of a peaceful, sovereign nation, we should not be surprised to receive numerous messages of alarm. Not worth it. We consider the economics behind continued U.S. aid to Ukraine, even setting aside the horrific human suffering as thousands of civilians die. The fact that, given Putin’s imperial ambitions, supporting the defense of Ukraine would save millions of lives and forestall World War III. Beyond the diplomatic and national security value of such aid, the United States is actually the biggest winner from aiding Ukraine. Here are three specific reasons.
90% of Ukraine aid spending will stay in the US, creating thousands of jobs
Some may argue that US aid has disappeared into the cesspool of unchecked Ukrainian corruption, but one study shows that 90% of Ukrainian aid funds actually end up going to Ukraine after all. It has been shown that this is not the case. Rather, these funds stay in the United States, where major defense contractors invest tens of billions of dollars in more than 100 new industrial manufacturing facilities, directly create thousands of jobs in at least 38 states, and expand critical Components are sourced from all 50 states.
Nearly all of Ukraine’s most dependent weapons are manufactured in the United States, from spears made in Alabama to guided multiple launch rocket systems (GMLRS) made in West Virginia, Arkansas, and Texas. Don’t forget that all low-value items such as night vision equipment, medical supplies, and small arms ammunition are made in the United States. Additional support for Ukraine would likely further help the U.S. economy, as most of the previous arms shipments were defunded by Ukraine. Not new supplies, but moldy old stockpiles and existing inventory.
The Ukraine conflict revitalized NATO and reduced the relative economic burden on the United States.
President Trump has long complained that European countries don’t contribute their fair share to NATO, a complaint shared by President Obama, but Trump says he will “let Russia do whatever it wants” to NATO free riders. Despite the president’s threats, his quest to get EU member states to make more meaningful contributions to their defense largely failed, and ironically, it was Putin who succeeded where President Trump failed. It was just the president.
The degree to which Europe is now sharing the burden with the United States after President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is striking. Before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, only two European countries spent more than 2% of their GDP on defense. Eleven NATO members currently spend more than 2% of their GDP on defense, and some, such as Poland, spend even more as a percentage of their GDP than the United States. At least six European countries increased their defense spending by more than 10% last year alone, with some increasing by up to 30%.
Furthermore, under the Trump administration, Europe’s financial commitment to Ukraine now exceeds that of the United States, even though the United States collectively spent more than twice as much as other NATO countries spent on their own defense. European aid has been particularly valuable in the last month as U.S. funding streams dry up, with some countries such as Estonia reserving half of their defense budgets for Ukraine. This is not to mention the addition of new member states, such as Finland, who join at their own expense. Sweden will soon follow.
Russia’s military power has declined significantly without causing a single casualty to any active duty American military personnel.
Critics note that Ukraine and Russia are near a military stalemate, with neither having made any substantial territorial gains since fall 2022, but the United States remains the biggest single winner. One of the three most powerful militaries in the world is severely degraded and humiliated without any deal. Casualties caused by single active-duty U.S. military personnel use only 5% of the U.S. defense budget and less than 1% of total government spending, an amount that the U.S. spends on mundane items such as software for government agencies. It is equivalent to the amount of Coronavirus rental relief. and interstate traffic signs.
By contrast, Russia is currently spending 40% of its government budget on defense and cannibalizing the rest of its productive economy to finance its wars, after losing 50% of its military over the past two years. is not unlike Ronald Reagan’s famous “Star Wars” approach. ” program disproportionately pushed Soviet military spending to unsustainable levels. This trend will likely continue as long as Russia continues to embarrass itself with its incompetent war effort. After all, in the past five months alone, Russia has lost at least five minutes of its valuable naval fleet (by some pre-war standards the strongest navy in the world), even though its Ukrainian adversary has no navy. Lost 1 of. The Navy suffered heavy casualties, by some estimates exceeding 500,000 men.
We have shown elsewhere that Russia’s productive economy is collapsing under the weight of economic sanctions, the historic exit of more than 1,000 companies, and Putin’s cannibalization of the war effort. President Putin hides most of the necessary national income statistics from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but through triangulation, it has been discovered that some economic sectors in Russia have collapsed by up to 90 percent and foreign direct investment in Russia has declined. It was previously found to be between $100 billion and $100 billion a year. Zero, there will be a massive capital outflow comparable to the flight of millions of top technology professionals, more than two-thirds of Russia’s exports are energy, and it will not be able to sell gas to any country. This has become virtually impossible and energy profits have been cut in half as oil is sold at a price. Break-even price. Beyond cannibalizing the 70 percent of Russia’s economy that he currently controls, President Putin’s only hope for victory is for President Trump to shatter the coalition of allies suppressing Russian aggression.
As the House of Representatives considers $60 billion in Senate-approved aid to Ukraine, it’s clear that just as Richard Nixon used his anti-communist credentials to forge a partnership with communist China, Mike Chairman Johnson need not be trapped by his past. Faced with a similar dilemma 80 years ago, former Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, an influential isolationist, made a 180-degree turn and, after World War II, Marshall, who had been vacillating among his colleagues.・Contributed to strengthening Republican support for the plan. In a seminal speech on the Senate floor in 1945, Vandenberg warned:
“We must maximize our cooperation with the Allies and minimize our friction with them. We have won the right to be heard on this basis of unity. We must bravely We need to clarify our relationship with our allies as soon as possible.”
Why would a capitulation appeal to appease Putin’s brutal imperial ambitions have a ripple effect on Central Europe, not to mention Taiwan, not to mention the global economic crisis it would precipitate? You don’t need to understand why America is unique. This is the biggest winner from aiding Ukraine, with real, immediate, and tangible benefits not only to U.S. security but also to the U.S. economy.
We must not succumb to the pathological fear of partnership and collective action that President Trump has harbored throughout his career. As the isolationist Mr. Vanderburgh put it, we must unite around “the bravest thinking we can do.” We are facing such a moment now, but supporting Ukraine is not just an act of courage or even charity. It is in our interest to support Ukraine, and America is the biggest winner by supporting Ukraine.
