Donald Trump has threatened to walk away from the Ukraine peace talks if there is no progress soon. The implicit threat here is that the US will no longer get involved, perhaps withdrawing arms shipments and even humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

It is understood that the proposed plan the Trump team has been working on has involved Ukraine giving up territory, including Crimea, and giving up any possibility of joining NATO. The plan favors Russia’s recent demands and Trump has recently said he has found Russia much easier to deal with than Ukraine.

But which country do US voters feel closer to, and which do they feel is more of an ally to their nation?

An Economist/YouGov poll conducted on March 17 asked Americans whether they thought Russia and Ukraine were allies or enemies. Some 2% thought Russia was an ally, compared with 46% who saw it as an enemy. In the case of Ukraine, the figures were 26% ally and 4% enemy. Given these figures, Trump’s Russia-friendly policy looks unpopular.

Meanwhile, the Cooperative Election Study data in the US has just been released. This project involves a large group of researchers who conducted a survey of 60,000 Americans at the time of the presidential election last year. This very large sample provides an accurate picture of US public opinion.

American attitudes to policy alternatives for dealing with the Ukraine war

The survey included the following question: “As you may know, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. What should the US do about the situation in Ukraine?” Respondents were asked to choose as many of the options shown in the above chart that they favored, with some choosing one or two and others several.

This technique means that failing to choose an option does not mean they disagreed with it, since they may not have thought about it, were indifferent to it, or did not believe it would work.

It is clear from the chart that Americans do not want their troops to get involved in combat in Ukraine, since only 5% chose this option. However, 22% agreed with the idea of sending military support staff, 33% agreed with sending military aid and 51% favored sending humanitarian aid.

A key point is that only 23% said the US should not get involved. There is not much support among Americans for abandoning Ukraine.

Can President Trump abandon Ukraine?

This raises the question as to whether the US can simply walk away from the war as the president suggested. However, this could cause political problems for the Trump administration.

The US has already provided US$66.5 billion of aid to the Ukraine. Abandoning the country would call into question Trump’s much vaunted negotiation skills and mean that achieving a peace deal, supported by 41% in the survey, had clearly failed.

When former president Joe Biden withdrew US forces from Afghanistan in 2021, he was heavily criticised by Republicans in the US Congress, despite the fact that the previous Trump administration had negotiated the agreement to withdraw.

Rapid withdrawal now from Ukraine could attract even stronger criticisms in light of his earlier claims that he would settle the conflict in 24 hours.

The chart below, based on questions in the survey, shows that American voters are not that reluctant to send troops abroad if they agree with the reasons for doing it. They were asked to choose as many as five policy alternatives relating to military interventions abroad.

Once again, different respondents chose different numbers of alternatives. The chart makes clear they are not enthusiastic about using military force to assist in the spread of democracy, or to ensure that the US has a regular supply of oil.

American support for using US military forces abroad

At the same time, it shows that 38% support using troops to prevent a genocide from happening and 46% support using them to protect allies being attacked, or as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force.

Finally, a majority support the idea of destroying a terrorist camp, a response probably influenced by the elimination of Osama Bin Laden by US special forces when Barack Obama was president in 2011.

There is no contradiction between a generalised willingness to use force in various circumstances and a reluctance to do this in Ukraine. Americans fighting in Ukraine would mean involvement in a war with Russia with all the risks that would entail.

But there was a strong willingness to support Ukraine prior to Trump’s second term, and these attitudes suggest that if he tried to withdraw from NATO or continues to put forward a pro-Putin deal, large numbers of American voters would be unhappy with this, and it could affect his support.

There has been global criticism of the Trump administration’s introduction of high tariffs and warnings of the consequences of these for the world economy. And what might be seen by many Americans as an abandonment for Ukraine would also alienate many international allies of the US, but so far, Trump has not shown many signs of worrying about that.

Paul Whiteley is professor at the Department of Government, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.