Aid to Ukraine strengthens U.S. hand with Russia and China, U.K.’s top diplomat tells Trump

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Britain’s top diplomat told former president Donald Trump that the best way for any U.S. president to inherit a successful situation in Ukraine in January is by pushing Congress to approve military aid for Kyiv as soon as possible, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Wednesday in an interview.

Cameron departed Washington on Wednesday after a whirlwind visit to the United States that included a trip to Trump’s Florida residence and club in Mar-a-Lago to talk politics with the Republican candidate — and attempt to persuade him to move his party to push forward aid that has been stalled since last fall.

“There’s an understanding, I think, that not supporting Ukraine would lead to Ukraine’s position weakening, Putin’s position strengthening, and whoever is president at the end of this year doesn’t want to be in that situation,” Cameron told The Washington Post after meetings in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and congressional leaders.

Cameron said that he focused on strength and weakness in his conversation with Trump, telling the former president that “it’s in everybody’s interest that Ukraine is in a strong position and Putin is in a weak position at the end of this year. Whoever is president wants to be able to push forward in a way that is backing success and not trying to overturn failure.”

Cameron was cautious about discussing Trump’s response, saying, “I will leave the former president to speak for himself.” The British diplomat added that Trump “wants a good outcome to this situation.”

Cameron was Britain’s prime minister from 2010 until 2016, presiding over the growth of the populist Brexit movement and resigning in July 2016 after Britons rejected his bid to keep their country inside the European Union in a referendum that he himself called. The Brexit decision foreshadowed Trump’s U.S. victory months afterward that year, but Cameron had never met Trump until their Mar-a-Lago conversation this week.

Trump has said that he would end the Ukraine war in a day — which, according to people familiar with his strategy, would involve handing Ukrainian territory that has been captured by Russia to the Kremlin in exchange for an end to the hostilities. Many of his advisers say they want to prioritize a geopolitical confrontation with Beijing over one with Moscow.

Cameron said that he told Trump that withholding aid for Ukraine would undermine a position of strength toward China.

“There’s no doubt that President Xi is watching this incredibly closely,” Cameron said that he told Trump. “I think that argument is well understood.”

Unlike Biden administration officials who have urged Ukrainian leaders not to attack oil refineries and other energy targets on Russian soil, Cameron said that Britain supported Ukraine’s right to take a wide range of actions to beat back the Kremlin.

“Of course we have conversations about what is appropriate,” he said. Still, he added, “it’s not as if Russia is limiting itself to only hitting military targets or only attacking on the front. It’s attacking all over Ukraine … one can over-worry about the escalation risk.”

Cameron has come under growing pressure inside Britain to revoke export licenses for military aid to Israel over its conduct in Gaza, especially after three British citizens were killed in the attack on a World Central Kitchen convoy last week. Cameron said that he did not currently have plans to shift policy.

Britain has “a proper process for looking at these things and for our licensing procedures which we will continue to do,” he added.

One of his major focuses is on ramping up the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza, he said. Israeli policy shifts to allow in more aid “are very good to hear,” he said, but “we want those words turned into actions.”