The measure of a presidency is ultimately found in what endures beyond it. For President Trump, whose second term has been defined by ambitious efforts to reshape American foreign policy, few opportunities carry greater consequence than securing an end to Russia's brutal war against Ukraine.
Tuesday's election results have complicated the political landscape and narrowed the president's room to maneuver at home, but foreign policy remains an arena in which decisive leadership can produce achievements that transcend electoral cycles. In Ukraine, the administration has both significant American interests to protect and meaningful progress on which to build.
President Trump has negotiated an American economic stake in Ukraine's future and is actively working on a landmark bilateral drone defense agreement and supply contracts. first lady Melania Trump, meanwhile, has demonstrated the remarkable potential of humanitarian diplomacy, helping secure the return of Ukrainian children and a historic localized ceasefire that allowed hundreds of civilians to escape the horrors of Russian occupation in Olesky. Yet, remarkably, the United States still has no Senate-confirmed Ambassador in Ukraine.
Instead, American diplomacy has been entrusted largely to presidential envoys whose repeated engagements have yielded little durable progress toward ending the war. Vladimir Putin has demonstrated no willingness to make the concessions necessary for a durable peace. Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian cities, reject meaningful ceasefire proposals, and demand territory its military has failed to conquer.
The United States cannot afford to put its broader relationship with Ukraine on hold while waiting for Moscow to negotiate seriously. Indeed, the longer Putin refuses to end this war, the more important an American ambassador in Kyiv becomes because America's interests in Ukraine extend far beyond the negotiating table.
Consider the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, established under President Trump's leadership in April 2025. The agreement represents a significant American economic stake in Ukraine's future, including critical minerals, energy infrastructure, and strategic industries. Earlier this month, the fund approved additional investments intended to strengthen critical supply chains and Ukraine's energy resilience. These are tangible American interests, particularly as Washington seeks to reduce strategic dependencies on China.
But agreements signed in Washington do not implement themselves in Kyiv. Protecting American investments requires continuous engagement with Ukrainian ministries, regulators, businesses, and law enforcement institutions. It requires navigating bureaucracy, confronting corruption, ensuring transparency, and holding partners accountable.
That is not the work of a single-time visiting negotiating team. It is the responsibility of a sustained diplomatic mission led by someone with the president's confidence and the authority to advance his agenda.
The same is true of defense cooperation. Ukraine has become one of the world's most consequential laboratories for modern warfare. Its innovations in unmanned systems, electronic warfare, battlefield communications, and counter-drone technology offer lessons of extraordinary value to the American military and defense industry. These opportunities exist regardless of whether Putin agrees to a ceasefire.
And contrary to the increasingly common assertion that Trump has abandoned Ukraine, the record is considerably more nuanced.
His administration has facilitated the purchase of American weapons for Ukraine by European allies, advanced the reconstruction investment framework, and continued important elements of security cooperation to include unprecedented levels of intelligence sharing. These are consequential decisions that deserve acknowledgment.
There have also been troubling interruptions in Starlink/Starshield and serious disagreements between Washington and Kyiv. But the broader point remains: American interests in Ukraine have not disappeared. In several important respects, they have expanded.
Perhaps nowhere is sustained American diplomatic engagement more consequential than in Ukraine's democratic future. National elections have been suspended under martial law, an understandable wartime necessity that nevertheless leaves the country without the ordinary mechanism of electoral accountability. Meanwhile, concerns about concentrated executive power, institutional capture, political interference, and the independence of anti-corruption bodies are neither imaginary nor merely Russian talking points.
Ukraine's extraordinarily robust civil society has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to confront its own government, including forcing the reversal of efforts to undermine independent anti-corruption institutions. That civic strength is among Ukraine's greatest democratic assets, and it must be protected. Eventually, Ukraine will face the monumental challenge of conducting credible elections amid mass displacement, occupied territory, and the reintegration of soldiers into civilian political life. The United States has significant strategic interest in ensuring that Ukraine emerges from this war with institutions strong enough to outlast any individual leader.
There are also profound humanitarian interests that matter to the American people, and, clearly, to the First Lady. Our polling at Independent Women demonstrated that the American people feel deeply about the brutalized, terrorized, and subjugated innocent civilians of Ukraine. Of course the United States has interests that must reign supreme, and as Sec. Rubio demonstrated in his recent address in Greece, they must be downstream of values. Interests and ideals need not cancel one another out, and the arithmetic for foreign engagement cannot be all or nothing on either side of that ledger.
The president has made clear that under his leadership American foreign policy must produce tangible results for the American people. Whether measured in commercial opportunities, strategic resources, defense innovation, or greater security, Ukraine presents significant opportunities to advance those objectives while also leading on critical moral fronts. President Trump has put American interests on the line in Ukraine. He should put an American ambassador on the ground to defend them.
Meaghan Mobbs, PhD, is director of Independent Women’s Center for American Safety and Security.