US presidential candidate Donald Trump used a campaign event in Detroit to criticize American arms deliveries to Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky is the “best salesman ever,” Trump said on Saturday. “Every time he comes to our country, he leaves with $60 billion,” he explained.
However, the actual sequence of events was different: The last time the Ukrainian president visited the United States was in December 2023. At that time, he spoke to the US Congress and called for further aid. “So much depends on the world, so much depends on you,” he said to the MPs.
This sparked a months-long dispute in the US House of Representatives. Numerous Republicans opposed the aid, and the party has a razor-thin majority in the US House of Representatives. Then came the turnaround: In April, the bill was passed with votes from both Democrats and Republicans – even though numerous Trump allies voted against it. The amount of aid was around 60 billion US dollars (around 57 billion euros) and was the most extensive of all US financial commitments to date.
At the event on Saturday, Trump railed against Zelensky’s strategy: “It never stops,” he said. “If I’m elected president, I’ll stop it.”
Before pledging US aid in April, Trump had spoken out in favor of Ukraine. “Ukraine’s survival is important to us too,” he said at the time on his social media platform Truth Social. At the same time, he called on Europeans to provide greater support to Ukraine. “Why doesn’t Europe give more money to help Ukraine?” he wrote.
At the G7 summit last week, the industrialized countries pledged their long-term support to Ukraine. A loan of 50 billion dollars (a good 46 billion euros) is intended to help in the fight against Russia. This is to be financed from the interest on frozen Russian assets and will be available until the end of the year – probably also to prevent US aid from drying up in the event of a possible re-election of Donald Trump as US president.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that the agreement had created the basis for Ukraine to acquire the necessary weapons and to invest in reconstruction and energy infrastructure. It was a “clear signal” to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he could not hope for a decrease in international support for Ukraine.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Ukraine and the USA signed a bilateral security agreement. It promises long-term support for Ukraine over ten years. Zelenskyy saw the agreement as a possible “bridge to Ukraine’s NATO membership.”
