House Republican leaders were preparing for defeat Tuesday night when they were forced to call off a vote on a resolution intended to serve as a framework for a massive bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Minutes later, however, a stunning about-face brought lawmakers sprinting back to the nearly empty House chamber. GOP leaders celebrated a narrow victory soon afterward, with the resolution being adopted in a 217-to-215 vote, with just one Republican voting against it.

It was a stark departure from the situation hours earlier when several GOP lawmakers – Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Thomas Massie, R-Ky. – all signaled that they would oppose the bill.

Several people who have spoken with Fox News Digital in the days since then have credited Trump with getting the bill across the line. Trump had lengthy phone calls with both Burchett and Spartz on Tuesday, Fox News Digital was told.

‘He answered my questions,’ Burchett told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. ‘He’s very persuasive.’

One person who is familiar with the discussions told Fox News Digital that Trump had spoken with Burchett for 15 or 20 minutes on Tuesday afternoon and that the discussion was cordial.

Later, Spartz could be seen on the phone in the House Chamber during an earlier, unrelated vote.

Another source who spoke with Fox News Digital said that Spartz had asked to speak to Trump before she could support the bill and wound up having two calls with him.

Spartz declined to tell reporters how many times she had spoken with Trump and denied a Puck News report that the president had screamed at her over the phone.

‘It’s a complete lie,’ Spartz said.

A third source credited House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., with helping to get Spartz over the line as well.

‘Things got very emotional’ on the House floor as leaders focused their efforts on Spartz for roughly an hour, the source said.

‘Tom was really able to reassure Victoria that everything was OK. People weren’t mad at her. He just knows what to say,’ the source said.

But the earlier, unrelated vote had been held open for 45 minutes past its 15-minute window, and lawmakers were getting testy at being kept in limbo. A vote that was meant to be third in the series was second instead and had also wrapped up.

Meanwhile, three Democrats who had been absent earlier in the day returned in dramatic fashion – Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., with her newborn infant, Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-Calif., using a walker just after knee surgery, and Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., who had returned for the earlier votes – until Republicans saw they could only lose one GOP lawmaker and still pass the bill.

But Spartz had been convinced. Just after the vote was called off, she told House Republican leaders she would support the resolution if it were to come up for a vote the next day.

Instead of delaying the vote for another day, however, GOP leaders made a split-second-play call to rush lawmakers back to the House floor.

It angered Democratic leaders, who sent a message to their own caucus: ‘House Republicans are trying to jam through their Budget Resolution after assuring House Democrats that there would be no further votes this evening.’

Ten minutes later, the vote was back on, and lawmakers on both sides were rushing back to the House Chamber.

Burchett voted for the bill, and Spartz followed suit. Davidson, who also voted yes, said he had done so because he had gotten assurances from House GOP leaders about the March 14 government-funding deadline.

‘I voted ultimately . . . once I received the assurances I need that there would be actual cuts to discretionary spending. And, you know, everything about this is avoided,’ Davidson told reporters.

But a GOP lawmaker who spoke with Fox News Digital credited Trump with rescuing the bill due to his persuasion of Burchett and Spartz.

When reached for comment, a White House official told Fox News Digital that the resolution had been on life support until Trump saved it.

‘As a master dealmaker, President Trump is always active in negotiations on Capitol Hill, and the budget bill was on life support until President Trump urged Members of Congress to pass it,’ the White House official said. ‘The House and Senate must ensure that the final product encompasses all of the president’s priorities, but the budget passed this week was an extremely positive step towards one big, beautiful bill that puts America First.’

A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., referred Fox News Digital to his comments after the vote: ‘This is the first important step in opening up the reconciliation process. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we are going to deliver the America First agenda. We’re going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it. And this is the first step in that process.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Spartz’s office but did not receive comment by filing deadline.

: Deterring China is a top priority in Congress for the House’s number four Republican. 

Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain, GOP conference chairwoman, is putting forth legislation that would expose the assets of top CCP officials and bar them from using U.S. banking systems if China chooses to invade Taiwan.

Her bill would require the Treasury secretary to unleash details about illegal assets held by Chinese officials and ‘expose all the players’ to show where their money is coming from to the public. 

The U.S. has for decades operated under a deliberately vague ‘One China’ policy that supports Taiwan with military aid but refuses to say whether America would defend Taiwan if China were to invade. 

‘This is deterrence. The U.S. can’t risk an invasion of Taiwan that would interrupt our critical supply chains,’ McClain, a member of the Financial Services Committee, told Fox News Digital. ‘We need to keep the pressure up, we need to remember that China is not our friend.’ 

McClain’s legislation dropped just as President Donald Trump announced another 10% in tariffs he intends to place on Chinese goods – the latest shot in an escalating trade war. Canada and Mexico will also face another 10% in tariffs.

The president imposed minimum 10% tariffs on Chinese imports last month. He had also proposed 25% tariffs for Mexico and Canada, but those were delayed amid promises that the two countries would do more to step up border enforcement. However, Trump said Thursday the nations were still not doing enough to combat drug trafficking. 

‘Drugs are still pouring into our country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels. A large percentage of these drugs, much of them in the form of fentanyl, are made in, and supplied by, China,’ Trump said. 

READ THE BILL BELOW. APP USERS: CLICK HERE

China, meanwhile, has warned the U.S. there are ‘no winners’ in a trade war and insisted it has been aggressively targeting fentanyl as a favor to the U.S. 

‘Out of kindness and sympathy to U.S. people and the responsibility as a big country, although fentanyl is not a problem in China, China has put into a lot of human, material and financial resources to assist U.S. to address the fentanyl crisis. It is fair to say that China is genuine and unselfish in this respect,’ Yang Pang, second secretary for fentanyl and law enforcement, told U.S. journalists last week. 

She added that China has handed over more than 10,000 ‘pieces of information’ to its U.S. counterpart related to online platforms conducting fentanyl trade.  

U.S. intelligence officials have pegged 2027 as the year when China will have the capability to launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. 

China in recent years has increasingly crept into Taiwanese waters with threatening displays of force. 

Taiwan dispatched its naval, land and air forces on Wednesday after China launched a live-fire exercise zone just 40 nautical miles off its coast.

As part of the drill, Taiwan says it detected 32 Chinese military aircraft carrying out joint exercises with warships. Chinese officials have so far not acknowledged Taiwan’s complaints.

And days ago, the CCP’s fourth-ranked leader, Wang Huning, called for greater ‘reunification’ efforts. China has long maintained that Taiwan is a rebel territory belonging to Beijing.

China must ‘firmly grasp the right to dominate and take the initiative in cross-strait relations, and unswervingly push forward the cause of reunification of the motherland,’ Huning said, according to a translation by Chinese state media.

On Tuesday, Taiwan’s Coast Guard detained the Chinese crew of a Togolese-registered vessel suspected of severing an undersea fiber optic cable connecting the islands of Taiwan and Penghu.

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. 

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds in recent years while doling out hefty salaries to its top brass and bankrolling a variety of left-wing initiatives. 

NASEM, which the New York Times reported in 2023 derives 70% of its budget from federal funds, received $200,616,000 in taxpayer funding from grants and contracts in 2023, according to its own Treasurer’s Report. 

That budget includes several salaries for top-level positions at NASEM that exceed $1 million per year, according to the organization’s 990 forms reviewed by Fox News Digital.

National Academy of Medicine President Victor Dzau receives a salary of $1,026,973 per year, National Academy of Engineering President John Anderson earns $1,027,185 per year, and National Academies President Marcia McNutt earns $1,061,843 each year.

Additionally, NASEM’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Laura Castillo-Page, earned $333,788 in 2023.

NASEM has used its federal funding to promote a variety of liberal causes, including putting on events related to climate change, racism and ‘health equity.’

In 2021, NASEM helped put on an event that discussed how ‘environmental injustice’ and ‘structural racism’ exacerbate climate change for ‘communities of color.’ Attendees discussed ways to use ‘stories’ to influence elected officials on climate policy, including ‘the powerful indigenous voice about the existential threats that humanity faces.’  

A 2021 NASEM workshop examined how ‘spatial justice’ can exacerbate public health problems among ‘historically marginalized communities.’ 

NASEM organized an event a year later that examined how ‘structural racism’ and biased ‘social norms,’ including ‘representation in media and body image,’ contribute to obesity. 

NASEM issued a report in 2023 detailing recommendations for federal policies to improve ‘racial, ethnic, and tribal health equity’ and another report in 2023, titled Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations, recommending ways to address widespread racial discrimination in science, engineering, and mathematics organizations in the U.S. 

In another report in 2022, NASEM outlined the need to define and incorporate ‘structural racism’ into scientific study and policymaking.  

A 2021 NASEM workshop examined ‘anti-Black racism’ in ‘Science, Engineering, and Mathematics.’

‘A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize a virtual public workshop to explore facets of anti-Black racism in U.S. science, engineering, and medicine (SEM),’ NASEM wrote. ‘The workshop will review the discussions at recent workshops of the Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women, identify policies and practices that perpetuate racism in SEM, and lay a foundation of knowledge for others to move more effectively towards anti-racist outcomes.’ 

NASEM also held a workshop in 2022 called ‘The Roles of Trust and Health Literacy in Achieving Health Equity,’ where a speaker blamed non-diverse leadership of healthcare institutions for alienating minority patients. 

McNutt has also been critical of DOGE chief and X owner Elon Musk on social media and said last year, ‘This will be my last post on Twitter/X. I can no longer be part of a platform that actively encourages disinformation and amplifies misinformation, especially when its CEO colludes to undermine democracy.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a NASEM spokesperson said, ‘Each year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conduct hundreds of studies, workshops, and other activities at the request of federal and state agencies, Congress, foundations, and private-sector sponsors on a variety of critical issues facing the nation.’

The spokesperson added that 58% of NASEM’s funding came from the government in 2024.

‘For decades, our work has advanced the American economy, strengthened our national security, bolstered U.S. global competitiveness, and improved our nation’s health and safety. We have taken measures to ensure that we are in compliance with executive orders, including closing our Office of Diversity and Inclusion. We stand ready, as we always have, to advise the new administration on its priorities.’

NASEM’s spending comes under the backdrop of the newly formed DOGE efforts by Musk and the Trump administration to rid the federal government of DEI and wasteful spending. 

Trump’s January executive order removing DEI from the federal government has already had an affect on NASEM and caused it to close its DEI program and remove DEI from its website, the New York Times reported.

It is unclear if DOGE’s efforts will continue to effect the day-to-day operations at NASEM.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment. 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said former President Joe Biden’s administration was aware of ‘very sexually explicit, highly inappropriate and unprofessional chatter’ happening on internal agency messaging boards across national intelligence entities for years, but they allowed it to go on. 

‘I’ve had whistleblowers come forward just in the last few days who work in the [National Security Agency] and who said, ‘Hey, we saw this, and we reported it through official channels under the Biden administration,’’ she told Fox News Digital in an interview at the White House on Wednesday, following President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting.  

‘And essentially they were told this is no issue, step aside,’ Gabbard said. 

It all comes back to ‘the Biden administration’s obsession with’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), according to the new Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

The chatrooms ‘were set up because of DEI policies,’ she said. 

Gabbard said the discussions had been going on for two years. 

Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Biden and former DNI Avril Haines but did not immediately receive comment. 

‘They were shut down immediately after President Trump issued his executive order shutting down the DEI across the federal government,’ she noted. 

After discovering the chats, Gabbard directed the agencies under her to terminate those involved, which she said amounted to over 100 people. She further directed their security clearances to be revoked. 

The employees who were part of the chats ‘violated the trust that the American people placed in them to work in these highly sensitive jobs that are directly related to national security,’ she explained. 

As for DEI, Gabbard said, ‘We’re just scratching the surface here’ regarding how much money, time and resources have been spent on DEI in intelligence agencies. 

According to the director, ‘getting rid of the DEI center that was stood up under the Biden administration, we immediately saved taxpayers almost $20 million.’

An additional $3 to 4 million was saved by nixing the various DEI conferences that employees would travel to, she added. 

Gabbard joined billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisor Elon Musk, Trump, and other confirmed and unconfirmed Cabinet picks on Wednesday during a meeting she described as energetic. 

Gabbard explained that many of the Cabinet officials are friends with one another and that they’ve all been inspired by Trump and Musk’s quick and aggressive work with DOGE. 

Andrea Lucas, the Trump administration’s acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), blasted The Washington Post and reporter Jeff Stein for spreading ‘fake news’ about DOGE cutting 90% of the EEOC’s workforce.

Lucas explained that Stein, the chief economics reporter at The Washington Post, mixed up federal agencies that have nothing to do with each other.

The Post reported that ‘an office within the Labor Department that enforces equal employment opportunity laws’ is planning on reducing its workforce by 90%. The article went on to state that the Department of Labor plans to cut its Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) from more than 50 offices and nearly 500 employees to four offices and 50 employees.

Stein also posted on X that, among the ‘major changes’ planned by Elon Musk’s DOGE, the Labor Department was eying ‘gutting EEOC office by *90%*.’

After Lucas called out the error on X, Stein posted another message in which he said, ‘To clarify, the office I refer to above is an office within the Labor Department that enforces workers’ civil rights laws.’

Speaking with Fox News Digital, Lucas said the Post’s reporting ‘undermines’ the EEOC’s ability to enforce the law by misleading the public.

‘We pushed back with corrections … and WaPo [Washington Post] retweeted being like, ‘Oh, I was talking about the OFCCP,’ which is in fact what he should have been doing if he bothered to get us back straight,’ she said. ‘But the main message is that reporting is misleading.

‘The Department of Labor may be contemplating significant cuts to OFCCP. I don’t know. We’re totally separate from OFCCP.’

Lucas said any potential cuts by DOGE to the Labor Department and the OFCCP are ‘entirely distinct from the work that the EEOC does,’ which she explained is to ‘enforce Title VII, which explicitly creates the EEOC and gives us a specific mission to combat discrimination.’

Lucas said the EEOC is ‘fully operational and continues to be laser-focused on combating discrimination,’ which she said includes discrimination on behalf of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) interests.

Lucas said the EEOC is ‘fully comply[ing] with the president’s executive orders calling for evenhanded civil rights enforcement.’

After four years of the Biden administration using federal agencies to advance DEI, Lucas directed the EEOC to issue a warning to U.S. employers that the commission would be prioritizing the enforcement of legal and financial consequences for ‘anti-American bias’ against workers during hiring.

‘Discriminatory employers should be aware the EEOC is not asleep,’ she said. ‘This kind of fake news really can muddy the water and make it unclear to workers that this government watchdog remains active and ready to defend them against unlawful discrimination, including DEI-related discrimination.’

On DOGE, Lucas said, ‘I fully support the president’s mission and DOGE’s mission to ensure government efficiency.’

But she remains confident the EEOC is here to stay.

‘We’re working really hard to make sure that we have the most productive workforce possible, and we’re looking to make the agency a really evenhanded and efficient workforce,’ Lucas said. ‘But I’m confident that we have an important role to play because our jurisdiction and mission are directly related to the civil rights executive orders. 

‘So, we’re a law enforcement agency, and we’re here to execute on those and enforce the law.’

The Washington Post did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment by time of publication.

President Donald Trump was asked several times on Thursday about comments he made last week, when he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a ‘dictator,’ though he oftentimes either ignored the question or could not remember making the statement.

Trump met with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House on Thursday, when the two leaders addressed peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

The president told reporters he has had back-to-back ‘very successful’ calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as with Zelenskyy, with hopes of bringing the war between Ukraine and Russia to an end.

‘I think we’ve made a lot of progress, and I think it’s moving along pretty rapidly,’ Trump said. ‘[Friday], the progress toward peace will continue when President Zelenskyy visits the White House. He’ll be here tomorrow in the early part of the day, and we’ll be signing a historic agreement that will make the United States a major partner in developing Ukraine’s minerals and rare earths, oils and gases.’

The president and Zelenskyy will meet at the White House around 11 a.m. Friday, and Trump said the rare earth minerals agreement will provide the basis for a sustainable future between the two countries.

With Zelenskyy’s visit quickly approaching, reporters asked Trump on Thursday if he had plans to apologize to the Ukrainian president for calling him a dictator.

Earlier this month, Trump blasted Zelenskyy as a ‘dictator without elections’ after the U.S. left Ukraine out of its initial peace talks with Russia.

‘A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time. ‘In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going.’

When Trump greeted Starmer at the White House on Thursday, one reporter asked the two leaders about having common ground, with Trump describing Zelenskyy as a dictator and Starmer describing Putin as a dictator.

After dodging the question, another reporter asked Trump if he still believed Zelenskyy was a dictator.

‘Did I say that?’ Trump asked. ‘I can’t believe I said that. Next question.’

After the two leaders met in the Oval Office, they faced reporters once again, and a reporter asked Trump if he would take the opportunity to apologize to Zelenskyy for calling him a dictator while praising Putin, who is a dictator.

Rather than address calling Zelenskyy a dictator, Trump spoke about the upcoming meeting with the Ukrainian president, saying, ‘I think we’re going to have a very good meeting tomorrow. … We’re going to get along really well.’

While Ukraine and Russia were a big topic during Trump and Starmer’s meeting, so were tariffs. One reporter asked Trump if Starmer had persuaded him not to impose tariffs on the U.K.

Trump said Starmer tried hard to convince him not to impose the tariffs.

‘I think there’s a very good chance that, in the case of these two great friendly countries, I think we could very well end up with a real trade deal where the tariffs wouldn’t be necessary,’ Trump said. ‘We’ll see.’

While the U.S. and U.K. started with a rocky relationship in colonial days, it has flourished into one that both leaders agree is special and will remain strong.

In fact, Trump was handed a letter from King Charles through Starmer, inviting the president and first lady for a state visit.

‘It was my privilege and honor to bring a letter with me today from His Majesty the King, not only sending his best wishes but also inviting the president and the first lady to make a state visit to the United Kingdom, an unprecedented second state visit,’ Starmer said, noting this has never happened before. ‘It’s so incredible. It will be historic, and I’m delighted that I can go back to His Majesty the King and tell him that President Trump has accepted the invitation.’

Immediately following Starmer’s announcement, Trump thanked the prime minister and offered a compliment.

‘What a beautiful accent,’ the president said. ‘I would have been president 20 years ago if I had that accent.’

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday is set to meet with President Donald Trump for the first time since he re-entered the White House to sign what could be a key minerals deal to help end Russia’s war. 

Though some details of the agreement have emerged since the meeting was announced this week, the exact terms remain unclear, and European leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, are waiting to see what could come out of this agreement, particularly when it comes to security demands.

Trump on Wednesday told reporters that Zelenskyy could ‘forget about’ any ambitions to join NATO, but the Ukrainian president also said that day that he needs security guarantees, otherwise ‘we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing.’

‘I want to find a NATO path or something similar,’ Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian leadership has long sought NATO membership, and in 2008 at the Bucharest Summit the alliance agreed Ukraine would eventually become a member of NATO, a defense partnership Zelenskyy has since argued is the best defense against a future Russian invasion.

Trump told reporters that by entering into a minerals deal with Washington, Kyiv will be granted ‘automatic security’ guarantees by the mere presence of American extractors on Ukrainian soil.

‘Nobody’s going to be messing around with our people when we’re there,’ Trump said. ‘We’ll be there in that way.’

But it remains unclear if this ‘guarantee’ will be enough to comfort Zelenskyy, and according to former CIA Moscow Station Chief Dan Hoffman, there are too many outstanding factors to determine whether Putin would be deterred, including Kyiv’s rearmament capabilities and whether NATO nations would agree to send in troops to Ukraine. 

‘As far as deterring Putin from attacking again [and] as far as Ukraine’s relationship with the United States, especially with this administration, you want the U.S. to have economic skin in the game,’ Hoffman said. ‘That’s how you walk down that path of closer bilateral relationship, and one where it’s certainly in our interest … for [Ukraine] to be an independent, sovereign nation.’

Trump said on Wednesday that European allies, including the U.K. and France, will be watching U.S. negotiations with Ukraine and Russia ‘very closely.’

‘They volunteered to put so-called peacekeepers on the site. And I think that’s a good thing,’ he added.

In response to questions by Fox News Digital over the European Union’s position on a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal, top diplomat for the EU, Kaja Kallas, said the agreement could prove positive for Kyiv so long as it puts Ukraine in a position of strength when it comes to countering Russia at the negotiating table.

‘[The] U.S. also has a very clear self-interest in play, and that hopefully makes U.S. support Ukraine more, because economic ties are making this stronger,’ she said. ‘And then it all works.’

‘Right now, it is a very important message that we send that we are behind Ukraine, to make them strong enough to be able to say no to a bad deal,’ she added. 

But it’s not just European allies watching the dealings unfold; Putin is also keeping a close eye on a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal.

Putin’s representatives reportedly proposed a similar deal to the Trump administration while meeting in Saudi Arabia last week, and they said a deal could be brokered to give the U.S. access to minerals in Ukrainian regions now occupied by invading Russian forces, including Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.

The Trump administration has reportedly not ruled out an economic deal with Moscow. 

Hoffman said it is in Zelenskyy’s strategic interest to make a deal with Trump, as it would hamper Putin’s strategic goals. 

‘[Putin] doesn’t want Ukraine to have commercial relationships with Europe and the United States,’ he said. ‘That was part of why he wanted to topple the central government in Kyiv and then install a puppet regime that was beholden to Russia.

‘The more links Ukraine has to the West … commercial links, diplomatic and strategic military links … it’s not good for Putin,’ Hoffman added.

European leaders are weary of President Donald Trump’s push to secure a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, with the European Union’s top diplomat saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘doesn’t really want peace.’

Trump on Thursday said his administration had been in ‘very good talks with Russia,’ though he did not expand on whether any tangible progress in ending Russia’s war in Ukraine had begun.

Some NATO allies, as well as the U.S.’s decades-old partners, are increasingly frustrated with President Trump’s controversial comments about Ukraine in what has been perceived as a cost of Washington bettering ties with Moscow.

‘[The] U.S. is talking to Russia, and you have to establish contacts,’ EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas told Fox News Digital in a sit-down interview. ‘But right now, Russia doesn’t really want peace. 

‘[Russia] … wants us to think that they can wait us out and that time is on their side, but it’s not really so,’ she continued. ‘If we increase the pressure, economic pressure on them, but also political pressure, if we support Ukraine so that they would be stronger on the battlefield, then they would also be stronger behind the negotiation table.’

The warning comes as Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are set to secure a minerals deal on Friday in what some hope could eventually help ceasefire discussions.

Trump has championed his ability to re-enter talks with Russia and his successful demands that NATO nations share more of the economic burden in securing Ukraine. 

NATO allies did drastically ramp up their defense spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but the stark reversal of U.S. policy in Ukraine between the Trump and Biden administrations has sent some European nations reeling.

While some allies, like the U.K., are looking to prove to Trump that Washington and London have more shared values than not, other leaders, like the incoming chancellor of Germany, are looking to distance themselves from the U.S., a position Berlin has not taken since the fall of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II.

Kallas, in speaking with Fox News Digital, also looked to remind the Trump administration of the important value of the NATO alliance and emphasized the only time Article 5 has been called in the 76 years since the alliance was formed was after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.

‘In terms of … international security, we need to work together with the Americans, who have been our allies for a very, very long time,’ she said. ‘And we have been there for America.’

Kallas, who served as the first female prime minister of Estonia, pointed to the sacrifices that NATO troops made in aiding the U.S. fight in the War on Terror.

‘We, as Estonia, lost as many soldiers per capita as the United States,’ she said. ‘We were there for you when you asked for help. 

‘That’s why it’s painful to hear messages that, you know, we don’t care about our European allies. It should work both ways,’ Kallas added. 

The EU chief diplomat has repeatedly urged the U.S. and European nations not to let Putin succeed in dividing the West over Ukraine. 

Ultimately, she argued that the U.S. needs to remain a steadfast partner with Europe in deterring Russian aggression because it is not only Putin that poses an active threat to the collective alliance.

Kallas visited Washington this week to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and lawmakers about vital issues that affect the EU-U.S. security partnership, though her meeting with Rubio was canceled.

The State Department did not confirm why the meeting was canceled without being rescheduled during her stay in Washington, though Kallas said that after positive discussions with Rubio at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, she if confident communication will remain ongoing.

‘There’s a lot to discuss, from Ukraine to the Middle East, also what is happening in Africa, Iran – where we have definitely mutual interest to cooperate – and not to mention China as well,’ Kallas said.  ‘There are a lot of topics that we can do [work] together with our transatlantic partners.’