In resuming arms supplies to Ukraine, Trump has gone against the Pentagon – The Economist
9 July 2025 10:28
U.S. President Donald Trump’ s decision to resume arms supplies to Ukraine was a victory for common sense, but it also humiliated the Pentagon leadership that initiated the suspension. This is stated in The Economist article “Trump has embarrassed the Pentagon with his turn on Ukraine,” "Komersant Ukrainian" writes.
The change of course was as sudden as the initial suspension of military supplies earlier this month, the newspaper writes.
“We are going to send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re under a lot of attack right now,”
– trump said.
The decision to resume the supply was announced during a lunch at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who had stopped the military aid, nodded in agreement with the president. Within hours, the Pentagon confirmed that it would send “additional defensive weapons.”
The Pentagon’s contradictory explanations
The Defense Department presented the suspension of arms shipments as part of a check to ensure the US’s own stockpile.
“We cannot give weapons to everyone in the world,”
– pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on July 2.
However, this explanation was largely misleading, according to The Economist. Although many Western countries are short of air defense equipment, such as the Patriot missiles currently being sent to Ukraine, they come from contractor production lines, not from the arsenals of U.S. forces. Moreover, there has been no similar interruption of arms supplies to Israel.
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The president was unaware of the halt
In a phone call on July 4, Trump allegedly told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he did not know about the arms embargo. This was a humiliation for the civilian leadership of the Pentagon, which saw the president reversing an important policy, The Economist writes.
Among the key figures advocating for the halt was Albright Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, who has long advocated shifting resources from Europe and the Middle East to Asia.
Limited prospects for aid
The resumption of military supplies is, at best, a return to the status quo, when American military support ended slowly rather than suddenly, the newspaper analyzes. The weapons that are coming to Ukraine were pledged by the previous Joe Biden administration, but this flow should decrease by the end of 2028.
According to the publication, Trump has not made any new arms commitments since returning to office in January. Tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine approved by Congress last year remain unused. The Republican Congress has not allocated any new funds.
Frustration with Putin
Trump again expressed frustration with Russian leader Vladimir Putin for refusing to consider a ceasefire.
“I am disappointed, frankly, that President Putin has not stopped,”
– trump said.
Summary
The publication estimates that the best thing that can be said about Trump is that although he still dreams of a grand bargain with Putin, he is beginning to realize that the Russian president is using him. He doesn’t want to spend more money on helping Ukraine to win, but he also doesn’t want it to fall apart during his presidency.
Trump probably knows that the defeat of Ukraine would be a geopolitical blow to America, more severe than the collapse of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of American troops in 2021, The Economist summarizes.
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