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Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker told the country this spring that President Trump has moved from talk to action on Russia and Ukraine, increasingly choosing the “hard way” to push Vladimir Putin toward a ceasefire rather than the easy path of empty promises. Volker’s assessment matters because he’s one of the few career diplomats who’s worked in the region and who knows when a president is actually using leverage instead of just lecturing.
The centerpiece of that leverage was the U.S.-Ukraine minerals framework and the tense Oval Office showdown that followed — a meeting that exposed how transactional diplomacy can be messy but effective. What the media painted as chaos was in reality a president demanding fairness and accountability after trillions were poured into a war zone; the deal and the fallout forced attention on who pays and who benefits in future peace arrangements.
Volker has publicly acknowledged that Washington’s approach has shifted, and he’s praised moves that give the U.S. a stake in Ukraine’s recovery while pressuring Russia economically and diplomatically. That’s the kind of hard-nosed, results-oriented foreign policy Americans elected — not the sentimental giveaways of the last administration — and even skeptics in the foreign-policy establishment can see it.
Let’s be blunt: Ukraine’s leadership didn’t make it easy. Volodymyr Zelensky’s public rebukes and his walkout left leverage on the table and showed a brittle diplomacy that can’t be trusted to accept the compromises necessary for real peace. Conservatives who warned that open-handed policies without reciprocity would be squandered were vindicated when the terms and tone of the talks became front-page spectacle.
Volker also urged Congress to strengthen the president’s hand with tougher secondary sanctions and other tools — a sober reminder that this fight will be won by strategy, not sermons. If Republicans in Washington truly mean it when they say they support the president, they’ll back the authority he needs to squeeze concessions out of Moscow and ensure Ukraine doesn’t become a perpetual drain on American taxpayers.
Patriots should be proud to see an American president willing to bend U.S. policy toward outcomes that protect our interests and demand payback where appropriate. Democrats and the coastal commentariat can holler about optics, but the rest of us know that peace is worth fighting for and that leaders who get results deserve support — not sneers. The choice now is simple: stand with a president who uses American strength intelligently, or go back to the same weak playbook that got us nothing but endless spending and shrinking influence.
