GOP hawks show contrast with Trump on European allies

WASHINGTON — The Republican chairmen of the Senate’s defense oversight panels, in back-to-back floor speeches Wednesday, made the case for supporting America’s European allies, contrasting with the Trump administration’s approach on key issues.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, sharply criticized the Trump administration for its desire to make Greenland part of America and for the White House’s broader antagonism toward European allies.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, addressing Russia’s war on Ukraine, supported the proposition that Russia should not gain at the negotiating table Ukrainian territory that Russia has not overtaken on the battlefield.

Both senators urged additional U.S. funding to support Ukraine’s war efforts, in direct opposition to the president’s view.

Neither McConnell nor Wicker criticized Trump by name, as is the wont of congressional Republicans who disagree with the president’s policies.

Taken together, the two senators’ remarks form the latest rebuttal from mainstream GOP hawks to Trump’s distancing of America from its traditional NATO allies.

‘Strategic self-harm’

McConnell, in his floor speech, documented how European members of NATO have spent more and more on defense in recent years and have provided 10 times as much aid to Ukraine as the U.S.

“For years, the most pressing concern about the future of NATO was whether and when European allies would take the obligations of collective defense more seriously,” McConnell said. “But today, the biggest questions about the most successful military alliance in the history of the world have to do with the United States.”

In the past, American leaders who wanted allies to spend more on defense also were defenders of the alliance, McConnell said. They “criticized allies because they wanted NATO to work — not because they wanted to score political points at home,” he said pointedly.

Today, McConnell said, the United States is tearing its bonds with its allies, starting with Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark.

McConnell said he has yet to hear of anything the White House wants from Greenland that the people there aren’t willing to give.

Coercing Denmark to give up Greenland would be “an unprecedented act of strategic self-harm,” McConnell said.

“Following through on this provocation would be more disastrous for the president’s legacy than withdrawing from Afghanistan was for his predecessor,” McConnell said.

Trump advocated a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but he called the way former President Joe Biden completed the withdrawal in August 2021 “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.”

Conclaves on Greenland

Trump said Wednesday that “anything less” than total U.S. control of Greenland would be “unacceptable.” He said earlier in the week that it could be done “the easy way or the hard way.” And some of his aides have suggested that military options are not off the table.

Other Republicans besides McConnell have criticized Trump’s campaign to own Greenland. They include Wicker and fellow GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, plus Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Blake D. Moore of Utah.

On Wednesday at the White House, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt to discuss the issue.

Later on Wednesday, the co-chairs of the Arctic Caucus, Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Angus King, I-Maine, were scheduled to meet with the Danish ambassador, Jesper Møller Sørensen.

‘The KGB agent’

Wicker, in his floor speech, said he wanted to remind listeners that Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is the greatest threat to peace, even as the world is much more focused today on the fallout from the Jan. 3 U.S. military operation in Venezuela and the possibility of a U.S. strike on Iran.

Trump, for his part, welcomed Putin onto U.S. soil last August with a red carpet. Trump has regularly backed Putin’s positions in peace talks, has pressured Ukraine to make concessions more than he has pressured Russia and has even blamed Ukraine for starting the war, echoing a Russian talking point.

Wicker, by contrast, put the blame for the war’s onset and continuation squarely on the shoulders of the Russian president.

Putin “recently launched the biggest air attack the conflict has ever seen and shown repeatedly that he is not interested in peace talks,” Wicker said.

“He is ever, and will always be, the KGB agent,” Wicker said of Putin.

The United States “should play a role in Ukraine’s security guarantees on a permanent basis,” Wicker said. “The Senate should ratify these security guarantees if they’re ever agreed to.”

Ukraine aid question

Wicker also noted that the fiscal 2026 NDAA authorizes more spending on the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which has bankrolled new U.S. weapons and services for Ukraine. The law designates $400 million for that purpose.

But the funds would have to be appropriated in the House-Senate compromise Defense spending bill for fiscal 2026, a measure that is expected be unveiled before the start of next week.

The president has not asked for more Defense appropriations for Ukraine in fiscal 2026 and has said he opposes it.

Trump has instead favored a new approach, which has come to be called the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List initiative. Under that program, Europeans spend their own funds on arms to help Ukraine, in part by buying U.S.-built equipment.

Wicker echoed McConnell in applauding Europe for stepping up under that new program — but said it is not enough without more U.S. support.

The United States, in particular, “should increase the air defenses and long-range strike capabilities that we are sending to Kyiv,” Wicker said. “For nearly four years, Ukrainians have demonstrated their resolve. The West must continue to stand resolved with them.”

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