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20-11-2024
WASHINGTON KYIV: President Joe Biden’s apparent green light for Ukraine to strike Russia with US-made long-range missiles has caused consternation among some of Donald Trump’s allies.
Trump himself has not commented, but he won the election after promising to end the war and several people close to him have condemned the move as dangerous escalation.
Biden has committed tens of billions of dollars to Kyiv’s war effort, and at the weekend he reportedly ditched a long-standing red line on Ukraine’s use of American weaponry to launch attacks deep into Russia.
Donald Trump Jr tweeted that the president was trying to “get World War Three going” before his father took office.
Biden’s decision has not been formally confirmed and it may never be.
When asked about how typical it would be for a presidential administration to take such a significant policy decision in its final months, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Biden was “elected to a four year-term, not a term of three years and 10 months.”
“We will use every day of our term to pursue policy interests that we believe are in the interests of the American people,” he said. “If the incoming administration wants to take a different view, that is, of course, their right to do so.”
“There’s one president at a time,” he added. “When the next president takes office, he can make his own decisions.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said no such announcement was forthcoming “missiles will speak for themselves”.
Trump’s camp is not pleased
Trump swept to victory on 5 November and is due to be back in the White House for a second term from 20 January next year.
Trump has campaigned on a promise to end the US involvement in wars and instead use taxpayers’ money to improve Americans’ lives.
He has said he will bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end within 24 hours, without saying how.
One thing is certain, though: Trump has always seen himself as a dealmaker and will not want Biden to take any such credit.
His son, Donald Trump Jr, was among the first Republicans to respond.
“The military industrial complex seems to want to make sure they get World War Three going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” he said.
Another vocal Trump supporter, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, condemned Biden, too.
“The American people gave a mandate on Nov 5th against these exact America last decisions and do NOT want to fund or fight foreign wars. We want to fix our own problems,” she wrote on X.
Not all of Trump’s allies, including some who advised him on national security affairs during his first term, shared this view – though they were critical of the Biden administration’s approach.
James Gilmore, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told media that the main issue with Biden’s decision to provide Ukraine this new capability is that it came so late in the war.
“My criticism of Biden is the same as every other conservative and supporter of Trump which is that the Biden administration slow walked this,” he said.
Gilmore said he did not know what the president-elect would choose to do regarding Ukraine once he entered office. “I don’t believe that he’s a man that usually walks away,” he said. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
