Nikki Haley also argued against writing a blank check for Kiev
Republican presidential candidate former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley participates in a Fox News Town Hall on January 08, 2024 in Des Moines, Iowa. © Win McNamee/Getty Images
US Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has spoken out against sending American troops to Ukraine. The former US ambassador to the UN also accused President Joe Biden of failing to articulate Washington’s goals in supporting Kiev in the conflict.
The frontrunner for the GOP nomination, former President Donald Trump, has also repeatedly criticized the current administration’s policies toward Ukraine, claiming on multiple occasions that he would be able to put an end to the hostilities within 24 hours.
Another GOP contender, Vivek Ramaswamy, has floated the idea of pulling the US out of NATO if he is elected president, POLITICO claimed on Friday. Ramaswamy has also consistently called for the termination of American aid to Ukraine.
Appearing at a town hall event organized by Fox News on Monday night, Haley clarified: “I don’t think we need to put troops on the ground in Ukraine.” She went on to argue that Washington should not “give any country, friend or foe, cash, because you can’t follow it. You can’t hold it accountable.”
According to the former diplomat, many Americans are asking themselves what it is that their country is trying to achieve in Ukraine, because the current leadership in Washington DC has failed to provide clarity on the matter.
Haley, who has previously described Joe Biden as the “weakest president in history,” claims that this softness has emboldened countries such as Russia and China.
Back in February 2022, she suggested that Russia would not have attacked Ukraine, had it not seen the botched US withdrawal out of Afghanistan in August of the previous year.
Speaking during a CNN town hall event in Iowa on Thursday, another Republican presidential candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, also asserted that President Biden “can’t even tell us what the endgame is” in Ukraine.
He went on to suggest that a major pitfall of US foreign policy in recent decades has been “getting involved in conflicts where we don’t have a clear conception of what we’re trying to achieve.”
DeSantis also mentioned the haphazard pullout of American forces from Afghanistan.
When asked by the host what his own ‘endgame’ for the Ukraine conflict would look like, the GOP presidential candidate vaguely answered that he wanted to see Russia put “in a box,” so “you’re not having wars break out in Europe.” The Florida Governor added that “Europe should supply the weapons” to Kiev.
According to the polling website FiveThirtyEight, as of last Friday, Donald Trump was far ahead of the rest of the pack, enjoying the support of some 61.8% of Republicans. DeSantis was trailing far behind, with only 12.1%, followed by Haley with 11.2%.
