Donald Trump’s strategy for Russia’s war in Ukraine has proven to be as unpredictable as the twists and turns of his tariff policy. The chaos and uncertainty that the president of the United States has created for his partners since returning to the White House six months ago demands a cautious approach to assessing his latest about-face.
Reversing a Pentagon decision to halt arms deliveries to Ukraine two weeks earlier, Trump announced on Monday, July 14, in the presence of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the shipment of “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment” to Kyiv. In particular, Ukraine will have access to the powerful Patriot air defense systems it desperately needs to stop the deadly drone and missile strikes Moscow has been launching against its cities by the hundreds.
These deliveries will use a new method: Rather than the donations of the previous administration of Joe Biden, the weapons will be sold to European NATO members, who will then provide them to Ukraine. The approach allows Trump to tell his voters that the operation costs them nothing – it is “a very big deal,” he boasted – and that he has succeeded in shifting the burden of supporting Ukraine onto the Europeans. He also sidesteps the need to ask Congress to approve new spending for Kyiv.
The announcement marked the first time the Trump administration, in his second term, has agreed to supply weapons to Ukraine. Until now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had to make do with the remaining deliveries authorized by the Biden team, with little clarity about the future. So it is an important shift. It is significant for Kyiv and its European allies, who are not yet ready to fully replace the US on certain categories of military equipment.
However, it does not amount to a total reversal. Trump simultaneously issued an ultimatum to Russian President Vladimir Putin, giving him 50 days to arrange a ceasefire or face trade sanctions. The US president has made no secret of his frustration with the Kremlin leader’s obstinate resistance to efforts to end the fighting. “I have solved a lot of wars in the last three months, but I haven’t got this one yet,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Flattering Putin while mistreating the Ukrainian president has not succeeded in softening the Russian leader. There is no reason to think the threat of sanctions, whose scope remains unclear, will impress him any more. Putin pursues his own agenda in this conflict: imperial conquest, from which he has never wavered. Trump himself has set limits on his policy shift: He still has not publicly acknowledged that Russia is the aggressor, and he was careful to deny a Financial Times report claiming that he discussed with Zelensky the possibility of striking Moscow and Saint Petersburg. He continues to rule out supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles. So, while there has been a change in Trump’s stance on Ukraine, and it is a welcome one, at this stage it is unfortunately not enough to alter the overall balance.
