Trump’s Ukraine Plan in Munich: Don’t Forget to Take Russia’s Money
Already off to a solid start on Ukraine policy, the Trump administration is now reportedly set to privately share the US plan to end Russia’s war with allies at next week’s Munich Security Conference.
The blueprint will reportedly be presented by US Special Envoy for Russia and Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who downplays his role at Munich as privately consulting with allies, with any eventual public presentation of the US plan to come directly from President Donald Trump.
The US plan reportedly includes security guarantees so that Russia cannot attack again. Separately, Trump said on Monday that he wants to strike a deal whereby US assistance would continue in exchange for Europe paying at least as much as the United States and Ukraine guaranteeing US access to rare-earth minerals.
If the details are strong on security guarantees, weapons supplies, and European money—and we will have to see—that would cover the first two and a half of three essential redlines that GMF has recommended as part of any good deal:
- Credible security guarantees: The ironclad way to ensure that, unlike the 17 prior Ukrainian ceasefires since 2014, Russia does not violate this one, is for NATO to uphold it. But with or without NATO membership, credible enforcement requires some 100,000 European troops in Ukraine.
- US and European weapons: Kyiv’s allies must commit to delivering all weaponry needed to make any future Russian attack on Ukraine tantamount to a suicide mission, not accepting any limitations short of nuclear weapons.
- European and Russian money: Trump should insist that Europe expand two funding sources that former President Joe Biden failed to tap: spending more European fiscal resources on a majority of Ukrainian military aid allocations, and confiscating all $300 billion of Russia’s frozen sovereign assets and remitting it to Ukraine, which should spend half on American weapons or reconstruction contracts.
Confiscating Russia’s frozen $300 billion is the only redline not yet mentioned in recent public communications from the Trump administration (although Trump’s treasury secretary previously endorsed this). This is the easiest and fairest way to augment US-funded Ukraine aid—and show China that attacking Taiwan would be costly. The Trump administration should lead by example by implementing the REPO Act more boldly than Biden did, remitting to Kyiv the $5 billion of US-domiciled Russian assets. It should press Europe to follow suit, given that most of the money is held there. The $300 billion should be warehoused in a well-governed Ukrainian development bank founded for this purpose. Trump could additionally insist that Ukraine spend half the money on contracts with US companies.
That is what it would take to deter Russia from attacking its neighbor again, do the same to China, avoid an even worse collapse than Afghanistan under Biden, create US jobs while saving taxpayer dollars, and secure Trump’s legacy as a decisive leader of the free world.
Trump is in a position of strength to make this happen. But the proof as to whether he is fully leveraging that position will be in the details, which will be discussed in Munich.