WATCH: U.S. Ambassador to NATO lays out international plans

OPINION:

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker sat down for an exclusive one-on-one interview with The Washington Times’ Tim Constantine and shared President Trump’s vision for peace in Ukraine, international trade and more.

[CONSTANTINE] In February of 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. And part of their justification, right or wrong, was that Ukraine aspired to be in NATO. And they used that as part of their rationale for invading. Now, nearly four years later, as we’re talking about a ceasefire, we see the United States and our European allies in NATO talking about putting in a security force to make sure that a ceasefire stays. But every time I hear anyone from Western Europe or the United States talk about it, they talk in terms of Article Five. They reference that as a point so people will understand it, but is that going to be a put-off to Russia? Will Russia be interested in the ceasefire that essentially borrows something from NATO? 

[WHITAKER] I really think first, we need peace before security guarantees or an Article Five-like peacekeeping force would be put in place. We need to continue to create the situation to bring both sides to the table so that they can agree to a deal. So and that’s number one. President Trump is adamant that the killing and the death and destruction and devastation needs to end. We woke up this morning to a missile attack on an apartment building that killed at least 17 people. They’re still trying to dig out, see if there’s any survivors. It’s just terrible. 

So it’s not just death and destruction on the front line. It’s in the cities in Ukraine, and I think a lot of what Russia talks about when they talk about the reasons for their invasion of Ukraine is all pretext. They just didn’t want a Ukraine that was Western looking. They didn’t want it to be part of NATO, didn’t want it to be part of the EU, didn’t want to be part of Europe. And so they decided that they would make a move on that. But I’m obviously working very hard on this. President Trump and Secretary Rubio are working very hard on not only helping Ukraine defend itself, but at the same time bringing this war to an end.

It’s been going on too long. There are no battlefield gains. It’s not going to be one on the battlefield. It’s going to be one at the negotiating table. And so President Trump continues to create circumstances to bring both sides closer. 

[CONSTANTINE] President Trump has talked very clearly with the American allies about European members of NATO carrying their own weight, no matter what the process, how it unfolds, but making sure they carry their own weight. What does that look like? 

[WHITAKER] Well, we were in the Oval Office a little over a month ago where he announced an initiative where the United States would sell to our NATO allies American weapons and munitions and that those would be then provided to Ukraine by those NATO allies. And we’ve announced four packages of about a half a billion dollars each, so about two billion dollars in total have been announced. 

I’m in the White House. He put me in charge of coordinating it here at NATO, and so I’ve been working very hard on that initiative. 

Watch the video for the full conversation.

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