Trump Policy Shifts Strain Ukrainian American Voters

Outside the Ukrainian educational and cultural center in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, a banner offered a straightforward declaration of gratitude: “Thank you USA for supporting Ukraine.” Inside, however, retirees gathered to hear a frontline military equipment presentation voiced sharp indignation at Washington’s recent policy shifts, The Guardian reported.

The gathering showed a growing political fracture among Ukrainian Americans in the Philadelphia metropolitan area ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Irene Skulsky, a retired teacher in her late 70s, told fellow members of the Ukrainian American Senior Citizens Association that her son, Darko, narrowly escaped death in Kyiv when Russian drone missiles struck five cars immediately ahead of him in traffic. Skulsky attributed the lack of an advance air-raid alert to Washington’s decision to suspend its intelligence-sharing arrangement with Ukraine, a system that has functioned as an early warning network since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

While the Trump administration denied halting intelligence sharing this month amid a diplomatic chill, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that his government received no advance warning of two recent missile attack waves. The sequence has left voters like Skulsky questioning their traditional party loyalties.

Diesel Deals and Foreign Policy Shifts

The friction over Ukraine forms part of a broader foreign policy realignment under Donald Trump that has strained traditional alliances. Following his campaign pledge to end the conflict within 24 hours of returning to office, Trump struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to purchase nearly 5 million tonnes of diesel, overriding existing US sanctions on Moscow.

The administration also called on Ukrainians to replace Zelenskyy and was accused of throttling the Ukrainian military’s access to Starlink satellite internet services. Meanwhile, special envoy Steve Witkoff praised Putin as a “humanitarian” following the release of 74-year-old US citizen Stephen Hubbard, who had been imprisoned in Russia. Economists argue that the volume of diesel secured in the Moscow agreement is too small to lower prices for US consumers, which have climbed due to separate disruptions.

Import Tariffs Strain Trade with Canada

At the same time, broad tariffs on imports have strained relationships with key trading partners, including Canada. Following the collapse of bilateral trade talks in August, the Trump administration placed tariffs on $20bn of Canadian imports, drawing retaliatory measures from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and public pushback from Republican candidates in border states like Michigan.

Alienating Lifelong Republicans

For many Ukrainian Americans in Pennsylvania—home to an estimated 105,000 to 122,000 people of Ukrainian descent—foreign policy has become the defining ballot issue. Eugene Luciw, a local representative of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, estimated that voters in the community who previously supported Trump have turned away from him following the diesel agreement with Moscow. Peter and Orysia Hewuka, lifelong Republicans and long-term party supporters in the Philadelphia suburbs, said the shift toward Russia has pushed them to consider voting for Democrats in the upcoming midterms. Peter Hewuka, an 88-year-old retired nuclear physicist, described the psychological hurdle of breaking with the party of Ronald Reagan.

“The Republican party has left us, we haven’t left the Republican party,” he said.

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