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America’s allies in Europe expressed concerns after U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ruled out the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO and broadcasted an eagerness to end the Russia-Ukraine war on terms that they say favor Moscow. NATO allies, including France and the United Kingdom, rejected Hegseth’s position, asserting that Ukraine must and will join NATO, and convened an emergency summit in response to the Trump administration’s rhetoric. One day later, on Feb. 18, President Donald Trump blamed Ukraine for being invaded by Russia, further dividing the U.S. from its allies.
Trump also recently suggested that the U.S. should “just clean out” Gaza and forcibly displace surviving Palestinians to other countries, remarks which were met with unanimous condemnation even from close U.S. allies, with the lone exception of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who embraced the idea.
Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor Newt Gingrich reviews President Trump’s positions on Ukraine and Gaza and argues that Trump’s answers for some of the world’s toughest conflicts are better than continuing to fight without any answers at all.
The following is an excerpt from the above video:
[On] Ukraine, what makes [Trump] very different is he wants to get to peace. He’s very worried about the danger of nuclear war. He’s also very worried that Putin not believe he can go around and randomly attack people. He does not believe it is possible for Ukraine to recapture most of the lost ground, because there’s just simply not a strong enough military in Ukraine, and he’s not prepared in any way to use American forces against Russian forces in Ukraine.
So I think what you’ll see happening is a series of meetings in which, ultimately, there is probably some kind of compromise in place, probably with an understanding that Ukraine is a sovereign country, that it can have defensive alliances, and that it can rebuild its military. There will certainly be very tough negotiations about who’s going to pay to rebuild all the damage that the Russians have done, and there may be some adjustments along various lines to make the Ukrainians a little more comfortable. But the objective reality is, unless Europe or the United States are prepared to send troops and engage in a really big war, you’re not going to be able to push the Russians back very far, and Ukrainians are more likely to run out of fighting people than Russia is. Russia is a much bigger country. It has an ability to mobilize a lot more resources, which doesn’t mean that we should in any way regard what Putin did as acceptable or appropriate.
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