US citizens support for Ukraine

On trade, the future direction is unclear, since Republican ‘fair traders’ co-exist with ‘free traders’. Trump may build on Biden’s ‘Buy American’ industrial and reshoring policies and stick to his idea of imposing new universal tariffs of 10 % on US imports. On defence, he may be discouraged from seeking to pull the US out of NATO given legal guardrails enacted by Congress in late 2023, but may press NATO members on the 2 % spending target or even on burden-shifting, and wind down the US military posture in Europe. Trump has claimed that he would end the war in Ukraine ‘within 24 hours’ and some assert that his unorthodox relationship with autocratic leaders could lead to a US-Russia ‘peace deal’ on Ukraine and to the end of the US’s ‘as long as it takes’ commitment to Ukraine. While in 2023 a majority of US citizens still backed US aid for Ukraine, Republican voters’ support declined faster than support among Democrats (see Figure 4), with growing Republican resistance in Congress to approving budgetary funds for Ukraine.