It's time for President Donald Trump to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin who holds the cards in the negotiations for a ceasefire with Ukraine, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie told Newsmax on Friday.
"We can now tighten the screws on Putin," Wilkie commented on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "If Putin doesn't come to the table, his economy will be wrecked, as it was in the first Trump administration."
He added that the United States is starting to flood Europe with natural gas and oil that will wean them away from Russian oil.
"President Trump has already unleashed billions of dollars of military aid," said Wilkie. "The president of Poland said the day before yesterday that American arms are flowing rapidly into Ukraine."
Further, the United States holds $300 billion in Russian assets in its banks, and Trump has frozen them, said Wilkie.
Putin's economy, he continued, was a "basket case" under Trump's first administration, as the president "knew what he was up to."
Meanwhile, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy, was excluded from talks Thursday after Kremlin officials said he was too close to Kyiv, and Wilkie said that's because "he knows where all the bodies are buried in Moscow."
"He also understands, at a very basic military level, just how weak the Russian position in Ukraine is," said Wilkie. "Remember, they're losing between 1,700 and 2,000 people a day. They've lost more tanks than we lost in all of World War II. In terms of their economy, you're looking at 25 to 30% interest rates. He's running out of cannon fodder, and Kellogg knows that."
Kellogg also brings a "dimension" to the table that others don't bring, "and that is deep, deep understanding of the military situation on the ground and the military situation in terms of Russian army leadership in Moscow," said Wilkie.
The former secretary also discussed Trump's Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and said that it seems that the organization is coming around to the president's demands on payments because "it's finally dawned on them that they can't play on the world stage unless they have some semblance of hard power."
He added that the combined strength of the British, French, and German armies is less than 300,000 people, meaning it is smaller than the U.S. Army's National Guard.
"Germany's army is, I've called it an olive drab Meals On Wheels," said Wilkie. "They contribute nothing. But Donald Trump has forced them into the realization that if they want to play on the world stage, if they want to have influence and actually be some sort of a deterrent to any ambition that Vladimir Putin has, they have to provide for their own defense."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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