President Trump announced Monday the US will send “billions of dollars” worth of weapons to Ukraine via Washington’s NATO allies — and threatened to impose “secondary tariffs” on Moscow’s business partners in 50 days if no peace is agreed to end the 40-month-old war.
The weapons will include “everything,” Trump said during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office — though the president did not immediately reveal specifics.
The White House also did not provide additional information on the specific weapons sent over to Europe.
When asked whether “Patriot missiles” — officially known as Guided Mulitple Launch Rocket Systems — or “Patriot batteries” would be sent to Ukraine, the president responded: “It is all of them. It is a full complement.”
“We will have some within days,” Trump continued. “A couple of countries that have Patriots will swap over, or replace the Patriots with the ones they have.”
“NATO may choose to have certain of them sent to other countries where we can get a little additional speed, where the country will release something, and it’ll be mostly in the form of a replacement,” he added.
Later Monday, ahead of a White House faith luncheon, the 79-year-old Trump reiterated that there will be “weapons of all kinds” sent across the Atlantic, with other members of the alliance paying for them by raising their defense spending to 5% of GDP over the next decade.
Hellbound and Down 