 "US not ‘the idiot with the chequebook’: Trump Jr hints his father may revise Ukraine war policy")
The United States will not continue to be “the idiot with the checkbook", Donald Trump Jr has said, hinting that his father may revise the US stance on the Ukraine war. Speaking at a West Asia conference, he suggested Donald Trump could step back from the conflict, marking one of the clearest indications yet from within the Trump circle of a possible shift in policy.
The intervention echoes the scepticism voiced by some in the Maga movement as negotiations involving Trump’s team apply pressure on Kyiv to consider territorial concessions.
Trump Jr delivered a sweeping criticism of continued support for Ukraine, alleging that wealthy Ukrainians had left the country and that “the peasant class” had been left to fight. Though holding no official position in his father’s administration, he remains a significant figure in the movement surrounding the president. He argued that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was prolonging the war because he believed he could not win an election if the conflict ended. He claimed Zelenskyy was regarded as a “borderline deity” on the political left while asserting that Ukraine was more corrupt than Russia.
Trump Jr ramps up criticism
He also directed criticism at EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, arguing that European sanctions had raised oil prices, enabling Russia to continue funding the war. He described the European strategy as “We are going to wait for Russia to go bankrupt – that is not a plan”. Trump Jr added that during the 2022 election campaign he met only three people who viewed the Ukraine war as a top-10 priority, contrasting it with what he described as the more immediate threat posed by Venezuelan boats carrying fentanyl into the United States.
Trump Jr further claimed, without presenting evidence, that during a visit to Monaco this summer he observed that 50% of the supercars, including Bugattis and Ferraris, had Ukrainian number plates. He suggested this reflected wealthy Ukrainians leaving the country while others remained to fight. He said there had been little incentive to stop the war because “as long as the money train was coming and they were stealing, no one was auditing anything, so there was no reason to come to peace”.
Asked whether his father, who campaigned on promises to bring peace to Ukraine, might simply walk away from the war, Trump Jr said it was possible, describing him as one of the most unpredictable figures in politics. He reiterated that the United States would not continue acting as “the idiot with the chequebook”.
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