Ukraine could become a “Vietnam” for Trump, says his former strategist

Donald Trump must quickly end the war in Ukraine, or he risks drawing the U.S. even deeper into the conflict, similar to what happened with Vietnam.

This was stated by Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon in an interview with Politico.

“If we’re not careful, this could turn into Trump’s Vietnam. That’s exactly what happened to Richard Nixon. In the end, he became the owner of the war, and it went down in history as his war, not Lyndon Johnson’s (Nixon’s predecessor, under whom the U.S. became involved in the Vietnam War),” Bannon said.

According to Bannon, Trump must immediately make it clear to Volodymyr Zelensky that “there’s a new sheriff in town” and that the war needs to end.

The former Trump adviser also called for a reduction in military aid to Kyiv. He believes that Trump could fall into “a trap set by an unlikely alliance of the American defense industry, Europeans,” and even some of Bannon’s own friends, whom he believes have gone astray—among them Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.

Bannon criticized Kellogg’s idea of threatening Russia with increased military aid to Ukraine if Moscow refuses to negotiate. According to the former adviser, this increases the risk of Washington becoming even more entangled in a war that, in his view, is unwinnable.

Bannon believes the war in Ukraine does not align with U.S. national interests and advocates for Trump to pledge in his inaugural address to end it quickly.

Meanwhile, Trump has instructed his aides to arrange a phone call with Vladimir Putin just days after his inauguration and has again promised to end the war in Ukraine.

In November, Trump pledged to stop all wars entirely.