Trump embarrasses the Pentagon with a U-turn on Ukraine

AMERICA ALARMED Ukraine, and European allies, when it abruptly halted weapons shipments to Ukraine earlier this month. Just as suddenly, President Donald Trump countermanded the order on July 7th. “We are going to send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now.” Within hours, the Pentagon confirmed it would send “additional defensive weapons”.

The U-turn was announced during a White House dinner Mr Trump was hosting for Binyamin Netanyahu, the visiting Israeli prime minister. Sitting next to him Pete Hegseth, America’s defence secretary, nodded in assent, even though he was the man who stopped the military aid. Another important figure pushing for the halt was Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s under-secretary for policy, who has long advocated shifting resources away from Europe and the Middle East to Asia.

The Pentagon had presented the halt in arms deliveries as a part of a review to ensure that America maintained its own stocks. “We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world,” declared Sean Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, on July 2nd. This was mostly misleading. Granted, much of the West is short of air-defence weapons like Patriot missiles, which intercept ballistic and cruise missiles. But those being sent to Ukraine now come from contractors’ production lines rather than from American forces. Moreover, there was no similar interruption of weapons for Israel which, along with America, expended many air-defence interceptors to parry Iranian missiles in the recent 12-day war.

Mr Parnell insists that the process to “evaluate military shipments across the globe remains in effect and is integral to our America First defence priorities”. This implies that some weapons could still be held back from Ukraine. But that does not hide the humiliation of the Pentagon’s civilian leadership at having an important policy countermanded by the president. In a call on July 4th Mr Trump reportedly told Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that he had not known about the halt in weapons deliveries.

The affair is a reminder that not even Mr Trump’s acolytes can predict his zig-zags. America First means what Mr Trump says, not what his ideologues and devotees think. The president again expressed irritation with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, for refusing to entertain a ceasefire. “I’m disappointed, frankly, that President Putin hasn’t stopped,” Mr Trump said. Hitherto he has tried to entice Mr Putin with the carrots of diplomatic rapprochement and lucrative deals. This time he wielded a (modest) stick.

His decision is a victory for common sense. Ukraine has in recent weeks endured some of the most intense drone and missile bombardments since the start of Russia’s full-on invasion three years ago. Stopping American aid, especially Patriot and other air-defence missiles, was tantamount to giving Russia a free hand and rewarding aggression.

That said, it would be unwise to assume that Mr Trump has now embraced the cause of Ukraine. The resumption of military supplies is, at best, a return to the status quo ante in which American military support was ending slowly rather than suddenly. The weapons reaching Ukraine had been committed by Joe Biden’s outgoing administration, with the flow set to dwindle until the end of 2028.

As Ukraine gets pummelled from the air, and is slowly pushed back on the ground, Mr Trump has not made any new commitments of weapons since his return to office in January. Tens of billions of dollars of aid for Ukraine authorised by Congress last year remains uncommitted. Nor has the Republican-dominated Congress allocated new funds. There is no money for Ukraine in the “big beautiful” tax-and-spending bill that Mr Trump recently signed into law. Even the small amounts for Ukraine in the regular Pentagon budget would be cut further under the budget request for fiscal year 2026.

The best that can be said of Mr Trump is that although he still dreams of a big deal with Mr Putin, he is beginning to realise he is being played by the Russian president. He does not want to spend more money on helping Ukraine win, but nor does he want it to collapse on his watch. He probably knows that the defeat of Ukraine would be a geopolitical blow to America, more grievous than the collapse of Afghanistan after America’s withdrawal in 2021. Mr Biden never recovered from that humiliation—and Mr Trump has never stopped berating him for it. ■