Splitting from DeSantis, Nikki Haley Says Aiding Ukraine Is Vital to U.S. Interests

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Tuesday that opposing Russia in Ukraine is in fact a vital American national strategic interest.

Haley’s comments came in response to a series of questions from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson about U.S. involvement in Ukraine. Carlson sent a questionnaire on the issue to the pool of likely 2024 contenders and said Monday that he had received responses from Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former president Donald Trump, former vice president Pence, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, and others. He said he did not receive responses from Haley, who instead released her answers to the questions in a public statement on Tuesday. 

In explaining why opposing Russia is a vital interest, Haley said: “The Russian government is a powerful dictatorship that makes no secret of its hatred of America. Unlike other anti-American regimes, it is attempting to brutally expand by force into a neighboring pro-American country. It also regularly threatens other American allies.”

“America is far better off with a Ukrainian victory than a Russian victory, including avoiding a wider war,” she concluded. “If Russia wins, there is no reason to believe it will stop at Ukraine. And if Russia wins, then its closest allies, China and Iran, will become more aggressive.”

DeSantis, meanwhile, broke with many of the other 2024 hopefuls and said there are no vital American interests at stake in the conflict.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness with our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” the governor said.

DeSantis suggested the Biden administration’s “virtual ‘blank-check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges.”

For his part, Trump suggested Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he were still in office and that he would be able to broker a deal between the two countries if he were elected for another term. He also criticized the disproportionate amount of aid the U.S. has sent Ukraine compared to Europe.

“Start by telling Europe that they must pay at least equal to what the U.S. is paying to help Ukraine,” Trump said. “They must also pay us, retroactively, the difference. At a staggering 125 Billion Dollars, we are paying 4 to 5 times more, and this fight is far more important for Europe than it is for the U.S.”

America was spending just under $7 billion a month in Ukraine as of November, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In response to Carlson’s other questions, Haley said the United States’s objective in Ukraine should be to help the Ukrainians stop Russia from trying to take over all of Ukraine by military force. 

“If Russia stopped fighting and left Ukraine, the war would end instantly, and America would no longer need to play a role,” she said. “If Ukraine stopped fighting, Ukraine would no longer exist, and other countries would legitimately fear they would be next.”

Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, insisted the U.S. should not send American troops and should not “send cash or blank checks,” however and said the U.S. should not support a regime change in Russia.

“Along with our allies in Europe and elsewhere, we should provide conventional weapons that enable Ukraine to effectively stop the Russian invasion and occupation of its land,” she said before criticizing former President Obama for making the “mistake of refusing to send weapons to Ukraine.”

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