President Donald Trump said American soldiers will not be on the ground, as long as he is president, despite pledging participation in Article 5-type security guarantees in a potential Russia-Ukraine peace deal.
"Well, you have my assurance — and I'm president," Trump said in a televised interview Tuesday, vowing to keep the U.S. out of armed conflict in Ukraine with Russia.
"I'm just trying to stop people from being killed. They are losing from 5,000 to 7,000 people a week in a war that should have never happened."
The "coalition of the willing" – a subset of major NATO countries including France, Germany, and the U.K. – is ready to commit their troops in Ukraine to defend against Russian aggression, but Trump is working a peace deal with U.S. backing and outside U.S. boots on the ground to defend the Ukraine-Russia border – no matter where it winds up being settled.
"When it comes to security, they're willing to put people on the ground," Trump said of the coalition, noting, "We have an ocean separating us, [a] big, beautiful ocean, They don't; they are right there.
"We're willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you talk about by air – nobody has stuff we have, really they don't have – I don't think it will be a problem."
"I think if a deal is made," Trump stopped and expressed caution with a caveat, "famous last words," before noting U.S. involvement in any conflict with Russia is still only a hypothetical as a peace deal is being hammered out.
"It can't be NATO," Trump said, as some NATO allies are Russian allies and others are not in the "coalition of the willing" ready for troops in Ukraine to defend against Putin advancement.
"Who would want that? If you were Russia, who would want to have your enemy, your opponent, sitting on your line?"
To show just how much Trump wants to remain a neutral third party to mediate peace between Ukraine-Europe and Russia, Trump left the European leaders seated in the Oval Office when he went to another room to privately call Putin at 1 a.m. local time in Russia.
Putin "picked it up happily," Trump said, noting calling him with the European opponents in the room would have been "disrespectful" to Putin.
"I didn't do that in front of them, that would be disrespectful to President Putin," Trump said. "President Putin wouldn't talk to the people from Europe – that is part of the problem."
The urgency was vital, he added.
One European leader wanted to wait weeks, if not months, to hash out the next step of diplomatic talks with Putin. Trump took the next step into his own hands.
"One gentleman said, 'Let's meet in another month or two,'" Trump said, cautiously saying he hopes saying this would not embarrass the unnamed European counterpart. "I said, 'A month or two?! You will have 40,000 people dead.'
"You do it tonight."
Trump, taking a more measured tone amid tenuous peace negotiations, noted his "great relationship" with Putin "only matters if we get things done.
"I want to get things done," Trump said. "If it works out, I'll go to the trilat and close it up."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.