GOP presidential hopeful urges ‘big concessions’ to Russia

Washington should stop providing aid to Ukraine and not allow it to enter NATO, Vivek Ramaswamy said

Ukraine will have to make concessions to Russia so that the US can place itself in a better position vis-a-vis China, presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy argued as he touted his ‘America first’ foreign policy approach at an event in New Hampshire last week.

The tech entrepreneur running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination put forward his plan to end the armed conflict in Ukraine without spending “another dime of American money." He argued that “driving a wedge” between Moscow and Beijing was of paramount importance and outlined a bargain with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“A deal that we can do with Putin is that we stop providing aid to Ukraine, we will freeze the current lines of control… and we will make a permanent commitment to tell Ukraine that [it] will never be admitted to NATO, not now, not ever,” Ramaswamy explained. “A big ask in return” would be that Russia would exit its “treaty and joint military agreement with China,” he said, adding that the alliance between the two neighboring countries is “the number one threat” to the US.  

Washington would stand to gain from a new Sino-Russian split, he claimed, comparing the idea to how President Richard Nixon leveraged then-strained relations between Moscow and Beijing to kickstart US rapprochement with China.

Moscow and Beijing describe their relationship as a “no-limit partnership,” superior to Cold-War-era military alliances, such as NATO.

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Ramaswamy was challenged about the proposal during an interview with ABC ‘This Week,’ when co-host Martha Raddatz pointed out that Kiev would not agree to cede territory. The candidate seemed unfazed and reiterated his opinion that defending Ukraine should not be Washington’s priority.

“I think that the job of the US president is to look after American interests. And I think the number one threat to the US military is right now, our top military threat, is the China-Russian alliance,” he explained. “By further arming Ukraine, we are driving Russia into China’s hands.”

At his speech in New Hampshire, Ramaswamy described the threat the US is facing in Ukraine as “non-existent” and claimed that after spending tens of billions of dollars on military assistance to Kiev, the US may consider its obligations to it fulfilled. The administration of US President Joe Biden pledged to keep the support flowing “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia.

Moscow considers the Ukraine conflict to be part of a US proxy war against Russia.