‘We Care About Human Life’: Romney Defends Aid to Ukraine as Not Only Moral, But Key to U.S. Security and Prosperity

Former Republican presidential candidate and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) offered a comprehensive defense of the United States’s continued military aid to Ukraine to fight off the invading Russian forces.

In a clip uploaded to Twitter Thursday, Romney ran through a series of arguments to make his case. The Republican made the claim the U.S. is driven by both moral and national security imperatives to support Ukraine and concluded “if you don’t believe that we should be spending on Ukraine, then you probably should say we shouldn’t be spending on national defense — and that makes no sense at all.”

“I get asked from time to time why it is that we’re supporting Ukraine, why we’re providing funding for their military and also for our military backing up some of the supplies we’re sending Ukraine by rebuilding them here. And, you know, I begin, of course, with just that humanitarian reality, which is we care about human life and about the suffering that’s going on in Ukraine,” Romney began, adding:

We’re just appalled by the fact that Russia has invaded a peaceful, sovereign nation next door. But the question also is asked, well, why is this an American interest? Not just humanitarian interests, but why is this good for the American people? And there are a number of reasons. Number one is that Americans are more prosperous. We have better jobs and better incomes and better prospects for our future if the world is at peace. If the world is in conflict, things aren’t good for us as well as for the people around the world. But conflict makes us less well off, so a peaceful world makes us better off. It’s good for Americans.

“And when you have a nation that feels it can invade their neighbor without a response, without a reaction, you can have that happening more and more and more because that kind of violence spreads,” Romney continued, recalling the horrors of World War I and II.

“Now, secondly, we’ve learned through sad history that when one country begins to feel they can take over another country and invade them, ultimately that keeps on spreading and involves us and we end up being attacked ourselves. That’s one of the lessons of history, which is that violence in the world spreads and it ultimately comes to our own shores,” he continued, adding:

Now, there’s another reason that we have interest in what’s going on there, and that is because there is a nation, Russia, which is a geopolitical adversary. We’re not at war with Russia, but they’re an opponent. They actually have 1500 nuclear warheads aimed at us. And we are, by virtue of supporting Ukraine in this this war, depleting and diminishing the Russian military, which is aiming its weapons at us. So this is a good thing for our national security.

And by the way, Russia is also China’s only real ally. And so if we’re concerned about China, weakening Russia is a very good thing. Finally, I note this and that is that the spending that we provide for Ukraine is very much consistent with, it’s of the same manner as the spending we have for national defense. We spend about $750 billion a year on national defense and the 20, 30, 40 billion that we’re spending on Ukraine is basically in the same category. It is defending American interests, America’s national security against adversaries that would threaten us. It is is a way of weakening Russia’s military, of weakening that China might potentially invade their neighbor, Taiwan. And so it’s of one kind. So when people say, well, what does this do for America? Well, why do we spend money on national defense?

We could just take all that money and spend it here on ourselves. But we spend our national defense because we know that if we do so, it makes it more likely it will be safe and prosperous and our lives will be spared. But if instead we didn’t do that, we would put ourselves in great jeopardy. So I just note that if you don’t believe that we should be spending on Ukraine, then you probably should say we shouldn’t be spending on national defense. And that makes no sense at all.

Romney’s statement flies in the face of many on the hard-right who have vowed to stop military aid to Ukraine and have accused Ukraine of corruption and embezzling U.S. funds.

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