After four years of former President Joe Biden's foreign policy, it's "refreshing" for the world to see the United States "leading from the front" under President Donald Trump, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker told Newsmax on Monday.
From bringing Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table to broker an end to the "needless killing," to getting China to agree to roll back recent tariffs and call a 90-day truce in the trade war between Washington and Beijing, Whitaker said Trump's leadership is scoring wins for America.
"There's only one person that could put this deal together and to urge both sides to come to the table, and so, on Thursday, [Russia and Ukraine are] going to meet in Turkey, hopefully, and begin that end to the war," Whitaker said on "Wake Up America." "This has been going on for three years, but that last comment on the trade deal with China, I think that's huge. But remember, that was also because Donald Trump reopened lines of negotiation. The Biden administration not only had let those atrophy with China, but also the same lines of communication had atrophied with Russia as well.
"Just restarting conversations with Russia had to happen before we could even get to this point, so all the credit obviously goes to Donald Trump and his leadership and everyone on the team, from Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio to Vice President [JD] Vance to [Treasury] Secretary [Scott] Bessent and everyone that is pulling all in the same direction to accomplish these things, to end the killing, to put American interests first and to really help the American people win on all these fronts," he added.
Whitaker also said that the U.S. will be pushing NATO member countries to commit to more alliance spending when they meet next month to increase the bloc's "lethality."
"All of them, by the June summit, which President Trump will attend, are going to be at 2%, and that is a huge lift," he said. "They agreed to that 10 years ago in Wales. What we're asking now is a 5% commitment to really modernize and make lethality the sole purpose of this NATO alliance, to have European allies and Canada equalize with the United States of America and really be a deterrent force to increase the substance of what we're putting on the field as a NATO alliance and deter our enemies and our strategic competitors from ever making a move on NATO territory."
Trump is expected to travel to the Middle East later this week with Rubio to hold a summit with several leaders in the region. Whitaker said there are countries there "that would like to take more of a leadership position, but there's only one big dog right now on the globe, and that is the United States of America led by Donald Trump."
"This is what leadership looks like," he said. "For four years under Joe Biden, we didn't see that and now we have a clear American foreign policy that we are advancing and I'm telling you, it's refreshing to the world to see America leading and leading from the front."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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