We’re now just 10 days out from the next Republican presidential primary. A new poll from Winthrop University is taking a look at the race.
The director of Winthrop’s Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research, Dr. Scott Huffmon, joins with more.
Meanwhile, Congress continues to face roadblocks in passing an aid package for Ukraine.
Tamar Jacoby is the director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s New Ukraine Project and currently lives in Kyiv. She joins virtually with more.
By Tamar Jacoby
SENATORS, BOTH REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS, made an important start yesterday when they voted 67 to 32 to advance legislation that would free up $95 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. It was, to be sure, just a preliminary, procedural vote. The Senate still needs to pass the bill, and even then it faces long odds in the House of Representatives. But the Senate vote was an overdue step to stop the disastrous downhill slide in American power and influence in the world. The United States faces a choice: to resume its role as what Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the “indispensable nation,” or to sit by and watch the world become more dangerous for us and our allies.
Opinions vary on when American global leadership began to wane. Some will point to the Vietnam era; others to the post-9/11 wars; still others to the Obama administration’s effort to “lead from behind.” Then there was Donald Trump’s “America first” approach, which actually meant “America alone.”
President Joe Biden got off on the wrong foot on foreign policy in 2021. Even those who felt it made sense to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan can now agree it was done too abruptly, leaving our Afghan allies at the mercy of a Taliban takeover. But then in 2022, the president changed course. Through 2022 and into 2023, the United States took the lead, inspiring and encouraging the world to support Ukraine as it fought off Vladimir Putin’s brutal, unprovoked invasion. Washington got the ball rolling with military aid and intelligence sharing, and soon our allies in Europe and elsewhere were following suit.
By Tamar Jacoby
Ukrainians reacted with surprising equanimity last week when Donald Trump all but clinched the Republican nomination for president by winning the New Hampshire primary. Most mainstream media outlets here in Kyiv treated the looming possibility of the 45th president’s return to office as a second-tier story, despite his hostility to Ukraine’s war for survival and his determination to scuttle a U.S. border security deal that would pave the way for $61 billion in aid to Kyiv. The Telegram channels where most Ukrainians get their news hardly seemed to notice his victory over former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, a fervent advocate of aid to Kyiv. There were no screaming headlines, angry political speeches, or sardonic commentary by Telegram subscribers.
The Trump victory comes at a dark time for Ukraine: stalled fighting in the country’s southern and eastern regions, intensifying Russian missile strikes, growing fears that Ukrainian fighters—those on the front lines and those defending civilians against air attacks—are running out of ammunition. Kyiv depends on Washington—more than $75 billion has flowed here since February 2022, when Vladimir Putin invaded in full force. (Russian forces have controlled Crimea since 2014.) The outcome of this week’s debate on Capitol Hill is as important for Ukraine’s future as anything that happens on the battlefield.
As a U.S.-led coalition steps up airstrikes to suppress Houthi attacks on international shipping, progressives are accusing President Biden of going back on his promise to keep America out of “forever wars” in the Middle East.
It’s a bum rap that confuses cause and effect. What’s the greater evil, an outbreak of maritime terrorism or the United States using force to stop it? On the left, the habit of blaming America first dies hard.
Biden is walking a tightrope between a U.S. public leery of being dragged back into the region’s endemic violence by the Israel-Hamas war, and Houthi attacks that are disrupting routes where about 12 percent of global trade passes through.
Americans don’t relish open-ended military engagements anywhere, but our enemies get a vote, too. Today’s Middle East landscape is littered with Iran-backed jihadist groups who see themselves as waging a Holy War to erase Israel from the map. They know they can’t do that without driving the United States from the region.
By Tamar Jacoby
From 2014, when Vladimir Putin first invaded Ukraine, until a few months ago, Western opinion was virtually unanimous. “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” the saying went, meaning there could be no negotiations with Russia and no concessions except those agreed to by Ukrainians.
Today, that consensus is eroding. No one is talking about negotiating without Kyiv, but there is growing sentiment, especially among Republicans who question U.S. support for the war, that Ukraine should be pressured, whether by a withdrawal of U.S. aid or other means.
What these hardliners forget: unlike Russia, Ukraine is a democracy. The U.S. and other Western allies providing military and financial aid hold enormous sway in a country where their assistance is a de facto lifeline.
By Tamar Jacoby
The startling news slipped by almost unnoticed in the last minutes of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s year-end press conference in December. Asked about the 6.2 million Ukrainians—nearly 15% of the population—who have fled the country over the past two years, Zelensky dashed off a list of incentives to encourage their return: cash payments, subsidized mortgages, startup business loans. But he devoted most of his answer to a very different idea: multiple citizenship. The goal would be to allow Ukrainians who live and work elsewhere to continue visiting, investing and otherwise contributing to the nation’s life.
It’s not a new concept, but hearing it from Zelensky was surprising. Was he acknowledging that many Ukrainian refugees may never return? The stakes are high: If the refugees don’t come back, demographic projections suggest that the country’s population, already shrinking before the war, could contract by 25% in decades ahead. Surveys suggest that the people who left Ukraine are better educated than the population at large, with two-thirds having completed higher education, so their absence would be a devastating economic blow for a country struggling to rebuild.
Zelensky expects European nations to encourage Ukrainians to return, including by tapering benefits for refugees except those in what he called “dire” circumstances. Czechia, Ireland and Switzerland are already considering travel subsidies to help Ukrainians go home when the fighting stops. Still, no one is talking about forcing them to return.
Thoughts and Conclusions After Consultations in Hanoi and Bangkok, December 2023
Note: A five-person PPI staff group including Marshall and Gresser recently returned from a two-week visit to these two countries, with extensive consultations in Hanoi and Bangkok. The following lays out some of the information and conclusions the group drew from these visits.
Vietnam and Thailand both possess strong and successful relationships with the U.S., but ones we can strengthen — particularly through more ambitious trade policy engagement. As Americans look, in economics, to “de-risk,” “friend-shore,” and reduce single-source reliance on Chinese imports — and in politics to develop diplomatic and security relationships with strong and influential middle-sized Asian powers —both are attractive choices.
These are medium-sized countries by Asian standards, but large by anyone else’s: Thailand’s 70 million people and Vietnam’s 100 million together aren’t far below the 215 million combined for Germany, France, and the U.K. Though their economies are obviously smaller, Thailand is a prosperous upper-middle-income country and Vietnam a fast-growing lower-middle-income state. Both countries, with their very different histories and political cultures, have all but eliminated absolute poverty and developed large and well-educated middle classes. It’s particularly striking to see that Vietnam, with 21,900 students now at American universities, sees the United States as the partner of choice in developing its next generation of leadership.
Both countries likewise have independent and carefully managed foreign policy strategies, whose core concerns are logical and compatible with U.S. goals. Vietnam is engaged in very high-stakes competition with China over maritime territorial claims, the main issue being a Chinese claim to vast areas of water and island chains quite far south of China’s coast and very near those of Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Vietnamese policy sees a close political relationship with the United States as a way to ensure that China does not simply impose its view on the smaller countries to its south, and is also a way of reducing the risk that conflicting claims will erupt in crisis. Thailand, a long-time treaty ally of the United States, does not have territorial concerns and worries most about spillovers from instability in neighboring countries. Like Vietnam, and with a deep tradition of bilateral military and intelligence cooperation, Thailand sees the United States as a valuable partner and contributor to regional stability.
Economically, the U.S. relationship with these countries is large and generally successful, but in some ways limited. Vietnam has been the “winner” of the Trump administration’s trade war, with U.S. imports rising from $46 billion in 2017 to a likely $110 billion this year with particularly rapid growth in consumer electronics such as cell phones and personal computers. Much of this is, however, processing work that continues to rely on Chinese components — a business source estimated that only about 20% of Vietnam’s $370 billion in annual exports is local value, mostly in the form of skilled labor. Vietnam’s government and businesses are looking for ways to increase local value, diversify their own component sourcing, and become somewhat more of a “creative” economy and somewhat less of a “processing zone” exporter. And from an American perspective, the United States’ export figures to Vietnam remain quite small, around $10 billion annually.
Thailand is a smaller manufacturing exporter, but one with more developed local industries which add more value to the country’s export trade, especially in automotive and food production. The culturally and intellectually liberal Thai tradition — involving open media, independent universities, a lively civil society and NGO landscape, and close observation of policy trends in major countries — continues to make Bangkok mainland Southeast Asia’s center of transport, media, finance, and culture, and supports a creative class in strong fashion, design, and artistic industries.
The goals of both countries appear to mesh well, though in somewhat different ways, with the program Biden administration Cabinet Secretaries Yellen and Raimondo have laid out: diversification of sourcing, reduction of over-reliance on China especially for products critical to major supply chains, and successful competition with China over the longer term. With this in the background, interlocutors in both capitals were puzzled by the Biden administration’s decision to pull back from conclusion of the Trade Pillar of the “IPEF” (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework) it had launched early in 2022. This decision was particularly startling given the Pillar’s relatively modest goals in particular, the administration’s unwillingness to negotiate on tariff and market access issues. Looking back at the experience, this choice meant IPEF elicited little enthusiasm in America’s exporting industries and farm sectors, and also left American negotiators with little leverage to entice IPEF’s other countries (including both Vietnam and Thailand) to make very sweeping commitments on the labor, environmental, and supply-chain issues the administration placed at the center of the talks.
The good news is that there is a lot of room for change, and still time to make it. U.S. export industries — medical technologies, agriculture, aerospace, machinery, energy — are competitive and successful, but in Southeast Asia, as in many parts of the world, face large market barriers. It is particularly frustrating, in the Vietnamese case, to see U.S. competitors taking advantage of the TPP commitments the Obama administration worked so hard to achieve while we lose ground.
And just as the export sector needs more, the case for avoiding tariffs on defensive grounds is very weak. The actual U.S. tariff schedules (as the New Democrat Coalition suggested last November) are plagued by regressivity and gender bias, ineffectual as job protectors, and ripe for a thorough review and purge even without international negotiations. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is proposing a radical economic isolationism, with a Hoover-style tariff increase at the core, which rests on deep and groundless pessimism about U.S. workers’ competitiveness and threatens growth and innovation in the U.S. and abroad. The Biden administration, though now entering its fourth year, still has the opportunity to respond with an optimistic, growth-oriented program that returns market access and export industries to the center of policy. Vietnam and Thailand are countries that will likely respond well to this, and they’re probably not alone in that.
By Ben Ritz
The current obstacle holding up Washington’s continued aid to Ukraine seems unconnected to the merits. Republicans, many of whom do not share President Joe Biden’s resolve to stand firm against Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions, are refusing to approve new funding unless the administration accepts their position on domestic immigration reform. They are cynically using Ukraine’s fate as a chit in an unrelated political battle. But underpinning this decision is another view held by many of them and their constituents: that the money Washington spends on assistance to Kyiv is a poor use of taxpayer dollars.
The critic’s argument, which can frequently be heard on both the right and the far left, is rhetorically powerful: How does it make sense to spend money on Ukraine’s military when we have so many problems here at home? Why should America finance a foreign war when we’re facing ballooning budget deficits, rising consumer prices, and other pressing economic needs? The answer is relatively straightforward: Cutting the Ukrainians off would not only be morally reprehensible, and militarily shortsighted — it would be fiscally irresponsible.
By Tamar Jacoby
Americans believe they face a choice in Ukraine: we can continue to help with weaponry and funding, or we can stop now, slowly dialing back our aid or simply cutting it off.
President Biden has proposed a robust aid package: $64 billion in humanitarian and military assistance.
But many Republicans in Congress are calling for an end to US support.
Others in the foreign policy establishment, Democrats and Republicans alike, now argue that Ukraine should be pressured to give up land for peace.
But few people seem to be thinking through the full consequences if America were to walk away.
What would this mean for Ukraine or US global leadership?
Alongside the Hudson Institute, PPI’s Tamar Jacoby co-led a bipartisan conversation on C-SPAN with Representatives Don Bacon (R) and Chrissy Houlahan (D). The panelists discussed the uncertain future of US aid to Ukraine and gave their perspectives on the path ahead for funding the ongoing war.
ft. Tamar Jacoby
Join PPI and the Hudson Institute
Friday, December 1, 2023
9:00 to 9:45 a.m.
Hudson Institute
1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW #400
Washington, DC 20004
Or watch the event via Livestream!
President Joe Biden has stated that Ukraine’s success in defending itself against Russian aggression is “vital for America’s national security.” Seventieth Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has argued that “the outcome of this war will have a direct impact on U.S. national security.” Yet despite significant bipartisan support for Kyiv, the prospect of continued United States aid to Ukraine remains uncertain.
What is the path forward for Ukraine aid in Congress? Can a bipartisan coalition hold in the face of a determined effort to cut off U.S. aid? What would happen if the U.S. ended military support for Ukraine? What policy changes are needed to help Ukrainian forces prevail, and what would success look like?
Please join the Hudson Institute and the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) for a discussion with Representatives Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) and Don Bacon (R-NE) on these critical questions. The event will be moderated by Hudson Senior Fellow Luke Coffey and Tamar Jacoby, who directs PPI’s New Ukraine Project, with brief opening remarks from Hudson President John Walters. The full schedule and speaker lineup is below. This event is taking place both in-person and online via livestream.
Storm clouds are gathering around the world. In Europe, Asia and the Middle East, tyrants and terrorists are on the march, while the country most able to stand up to them — the United States — is rancorously disunited.
Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis was a harrowing display of barbarism cracking through civilization’s fragile veneer. In Europe, Russian “dictator” Vladimir Putin is doubling down on his criminal war to compel Ukraine’s subservience to Moscow.
What a difference a few weeks makes. When I left Kyiv in September for a short trip to the U.S., the late summer weather was perfect and the mood in Ukraine was upbeat and determined. There had been heavy fighting on the southern and eastern fronts — the long-awaited counteroffensive was going more slowly than many had hoped.
But by and large, the country I left was the Ukraine the world had been rooting for since February 2022: Little David pushing back against the Russian Goliath — plucky, resourceful, resilient and still surprising us with successes on the battlefield.
By the time I returned to Kyiv, the world had turned upside down. Hamas terrorists had launched a 21st century pogrom in southern Israel. Israelis were retaliating with overwhelming force in Gaza. Worst of all for Ukraine, the U.S. aid Kyiv relies on to prosecute the war was in jeopardy, with a largely friendly Senate and far less supportive House on a collision course as they debated President Biden’s request for another $61.4 billion in military and humanitarian support.
The mood in the city was subdued — as one of my friends put it, this is a “dark moment.” An early burst of support for Israel — huge blue and white flags projected on landmarks and billboards across Ukraine — had subsided into worry. Would the fighting in the Middle East steal the world’s attention? With winter approaching and more of last year’s brutal blackouts looming, stores were filled with shoppers buying bottled water and canned goods. The residents of my apartment building chipped in for an industrial generator.
A good movie director would use a split screen: on one side, Washington, D.C., bitterly divided and uncertain about continuing aid to Ukraine and, on the other, Brussels, where both the legislative and executive arms of the European Union (EU) are standing firm in their support for Ukraine. Last month, members of European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of €50 billion ($53.4 billion USD) in continued aid, and this week, the European Commission recommended that talks about Ukrainian membership in the EU should begin early next year.
Many Americans are skeptical of the EU and loath to admit it might know something we don’t know. Yet, Washington should take a page from Brussels’ book — not just its support of Ukraine’s fight to defeat Russian aggression, but also its understanding of what’s at stake for Europe — and the U.S. — as Ukraine evolves toward a fully democratic market economy aligned with the West.
Ukraine’s long, hard road toward joining the EU began in earnest exactly 10 years ago, in autumn 2013, when a million people took to the streets to support the Maidan Revolution. Crowds brandished EU flags and hand-printed signs declaring, “We are Europe,” “We choose Europe, not Russia.” Then, in early 2014, 100 protesters died in brutal street clashes defending Western values against pro-Russian militants. That year, Russia invaded and annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea.
This story was originally published in The Messenger on November 11, 2023.
Living in Kyiv, you learn to put up with air-raid alerts. Sirens wail over the city, and an app blares from your phone, warning you to shelter from incoming missiles. In the industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, 25 miles from the front line of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, people shrug off the sirens, which sound a half dozen times a day and often more. “It’s just Russian music,” one local official joked when I visited recently, “bad Russian music.”
What matters in Zaporizhzhia: not warnings but actual explosions, which have left ugly scars across the city, including many boarded-up buildings on the main street. Yet few people take shelter even when they hear a nearby blast or see a plume of dark smoke on the horizon. “I used to be afraid,” explained one young woman who runs an online business. “But you get used to it. Everyone is used to it. Now we just get on with our lives.”
For many, “the front” evokes World War I trenches at Verdun and the Somme or the carnage a generation later at Stalingrad and the Battle of the Bulge. Zaporizhzhia isn’t on the line of contact; there are no trenches or firefights in the streets. But the fighting outside town hangs over the city, ever-present and menacing in a way you don’t feel in Kyiv.
I’d been to Zaporizhzhia before—two trips last spring before the start of the counteroffensive—and I returned this fall full of apprehension. It’s a city with a long history of warfare: first, as the home of the 17th-century Cossack fighters who defended the territory that is now Ukraine from Russian, Polish, and Crimean invaders and then, later, the site of bitter battles between the Nazis and the Red Army. What I wondered now: How was the city holding up as the grinding counteroffensive dragged into its fourth month?
After 16 years of living next door to a terrorist enclave, a badly shaken Israel is massing its forces to crush Hamas in Gaza. Palestinian civilians are caught in the crossfire — which is exactly what Hamas wants.
As it has done after provoking four previous incursions by Israeli forces, Hamas is counting on images of death and destruction in Gaza to trigger outrage throughout the Middle East and bring international pressure on Israel to stop the fighting and withdraw its forces.
The pattern is grimly familiar: Terrorists commit atrocities, then hide behind civilian populations to escape punishment. Limited incursions and ceasefires only pause the violence, allowing Hamas to regroup and set the clock ticking toward the next terrorist explosion.
And every time, ordinary Palestinians suffer as Israel strikes back at Hamas’s rocket factories, depots and elaborate network of tunnels, cuts the number of border crossings and takes other security measures that make day-to-day life for Gazans ever more difficult.
