In a policy reversal, frustrated US arms Ukraine and threatens Russia with sanctions

The Star

US President Donald Trump on July 14 announced that his administration will provide a fresh wave of weapons to be sent to Ukraine for its war with Russia, as he voiced frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin after failed peace talks.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00Do it in secondary tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days, it's very simple, and they'll be at 100.

00:05It's a war that should have never started. If I were president, it never would have happened.

00:09I used to speak to President Putin about it a lot. It was the apple of his eye.

00:14But once I saw what was going on, I said, you know, they don't have a war here.

00:19It's a horrible war, and it should be stopped.

00:21And so if it's not done, if we don't have an agreement in 50 days, that's what we're doing.

00:25Secondary tariffs, and they're biting.

00:30And I hope we don't get to the point where we do, but I've been hearing so much talk.

00:35It's all talk. It's all talk, and then missiles go into Kiev and kill 60 people.

00:42It's got to stop.

00:44The purpose of this is to say that this is a very big deal we've made.

00:47This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment is going to be purchased from the United States, going to NATO, etc.

00:55And that's going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.

01:00I think we felt, I felt, I don't know about you, Mark, but I felt that we had a deal about four times.

01:08And here we are, still talking about...

01:10And he didn't send serious people to the negotiations.

01:12So I remember that you were able, with Marco Rubio and with Steve Vitkoff, to get these stores going in Istanbul.

01:20I remember I was myself in Turkey for NATO business in May.

01:24And we put really good pressure on the Ukrainians to send a senior team into Istanbul.

01:29And they did.

01:30But then the Russians came up with this historian, explaining history of Russia since 1250.

01:37I'm not happy.

01:38And I will tell you that Ukraine wants to do something.

01:41Again, it's a war that should have never started.

01:43If I were president, it never would have happened.

01:45I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done.

01:49And I always hang up and say, well, that was a nice phone call.

01:52And then missiles are launched into Kiev or some other city.

01:56And I said, strange.

01:57And after that happens, three or four times, you say, the talk doesn't mean anything.

02:03My conversations with him are always very pleasant.

02:06I say, isn't that a very lovely conversation?

02:09And then the missiles go off that night.

02:11I go home, I tell the first lady, you know, I spoke to Vladimir today.

02:15We had a wonderful conversation.

02:16She said, oh, really?

02:19Another city was just hidden.

02:21So it's like, look, he's, I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy.

02:28I hope he's going to do it.

02:30He knows the deal.

02:32He knows what a fair deal is.

02:36If there is such a thing as a fair deal, there's no winners here.

02:39This is a loser.

02:40We've made a deal today where we're going to be sending them weapons

02:45and they're going to be paying for them.

02:47The United States will not be having any payment made.

02:52We're not buying it, but we will manufacture it and they're going to be paying for it.

02:57Our last meeting of a month ago was very successful in that they agreed to 5%,

03:01which is more than a trillion dollars a year.

03:04So they have a lot of money.

03:05We're going to be sending the best to NATO and in some cases to maybe, at Mark's suggestion,

03:10if we go to Germany where they're going to send early on missiles and they'll be replaced

03:16and NATO is going to take care of it.

03:18This is building on the tremendous success of the NATO summit, the 5%, but also the decision

03:25to keep Ukraine strong and the decision to increase our defense industrial production.

03:31So based on that, this is, that was Europe stepping up.

03:34This is again Europeans stepping up.

03:37So what we will do is work through the NATO systems to make sure that we know what Ukrainians

03:42need, so that we can make packages.

03:44Of course, in a way, we discussed it this morning, as Pete Hex said, at the Pentagon,

03:49in a way that, of course, the U.S. will keep on its stockpiles necessary to defend this country.

03:54That's absolutely clear.

03:56But it will mean that Ukraine can get its hands on really massive numbers of military equipment,

04:03both for air defense, but also missiles, ammunition, etc., etc.

04:08So if I was Vladimir Putin today, and hear you speaking about what you were planning to do

04:13in 50 days, and this announcement, I would reconsider whether I should not take negotiations

04:19about Ukraine more seriously than I was doing at the moment, if I was Vladimir Putin.

04:24But when I'm in Ukraine, I think this is really great news for them.

04:27So I really want to thank you for that.

04:28And it means the Europeans paying for it.

04:30And again, I mentioned all these countries, we will deal with that.

04:33And exactly as you said, it might also mean that countries will move equipment fast into Ukraine

04:40and then the U.S. later backfilling it, because speed is of the essence here.

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