As President Joe Biden’s administration attempts to handcuff President-elect Donald Trump’s ability to secure a just peace through unnecessary escalation in Ukraine, Trump has chosen a bull in the china shop as his NATO ambassador.
Former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker will serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to NATO, with Trump making that announcement on Wednesday.
“Matt is a strong warrior and loyal Patriot, who will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended. Matt will strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability – He will put AMERICA FIRST,” Trump’s statement read.
“I have full confidence in Matt’s ability to represent the United States with Strength, Integrity, and unwavering Dedication,” the president-elect added. “I look forward to working closely with him as we continue to promote PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, Freedom, and Prosperity around the World.”
While Whitaker previously claimed in a March 2022 Fox News interview that the Russian invasion of Ukraine put NATO countries like Poland “in the line of fire” and that heavy weapons shipments should be sent to Ukraine, Whitaker has increasingly come around on Trump’s perspective on the Ukraine war.
In fact, Whitaker was floated by Donald Trump Jr. as a potential primary challenger to Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, after Ernst voted for a $95 billion foreign aid package, the vast majority of which went to Ukraine’s defense.
“Senator @joniernst is another member of Senate GOP Leadership who voted to send billions to Ukraine. She pretended to be a conservative to get elected, but she’s just another RINO putting Ukraine First and America Last,” Trump Jr. posted on X in February. “Maybe MAGA @MattWhitaker46 will run against her in 2026?”
While Whitaker doesn’t have prior foreign-policy experience, the former acting attorney general was a strong ally of the president-elect over the course of investigations by federal law enforcement into Trump’s campaign and orbit, particularly in the face of the Robert Mueller FBI investigation.
As such, what Whitaker does have that previous appointees to foreign-policy positions within the first Trump administration did not have was loyalty to the president and the will to effectuate the president’s agenda.
The conservative movement reacted favorably to Trump choosing Whitaker.
Curt Mills, the executive director of The American Conservative, told The Daily Signal, “President-elect Trump’s selection of a ‘political’ over a ‘career’ for this role shows that’s he’s all business on making good on his promise to end the war.”
“Experience is useful in life, but not if it’s negative experience. Had he selected an establishment figure, it would have signaled a softer line,” Mills added. “We might really see Trump go full bore to end the war in Ukraine in 2025.”
Mark Episkopos, a research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s Eurasia Program, told The Daily Signal that Whitaker’s outsider status can work to Trump’s advantage.
“America needs an ambassador to NATO who sees their job as distinct from being a lobbyist for NATO,” Episkopos told The Daily Signal. “President-elect Trump’s appointment of Whitaker, an outsider with no ties to the transatlantic security establishment, is suggestive of his intent to press long-overdue questions of burden-sharing and burden-shifting with our European allies, a topic Trump honed in on during his first term.”
The result could be a paradigm shift.
“Whitaker is a strong choice in a field which will possibly see the biggest paradigm shift of all theaters,” Sumantra Maitra, director of research and outreach at the American Ideas Institute, told The Daily Signal. “He hopefully gets that Western Europe isn’t going to pay for defense as long as Uncle Sam is there in between them and their strategic threat, i.e., Russia. The best option is to have a compromise where Europe spends for its own defense with America only providing the nuclear and naval umbrella.”