Between the two Vladimirs. Why the strengthening of military support for Ukraine, the United States and Trump can win

On March 24, a new meeting of the Ukrainian and American delegations was held in Riyadh, and, as last time, it did not bring any breakthroughs. Ukraine has already suffered from Trump’s impulsiberity, then illegally stopping military aid, then renewing it. If Trump decides to stop military assistance to Ukraine again, Congress will not be able to prevent him, says military columnist Colby Badvor, and from such a turn, Trump retains only the benefits for the US military-industrial complex, which military orders bring. But the American president has another move: in response to Putin’s reluctance to take real steps towards a truce, he can increase sanctions pressure and military support for Ukraine. This is not only in the national interests of the United States itself, but will also strengthen the shattered relations with American allies.

The war in Ukraine is already in its fourth year, but the country is still suffering not only because of Russian shelling, but also in the political chaos in the United States. If the administration of Joe Biden was criticized for its indecision and slowness, then the actions of Donald Trump in foreign policy often simply shock America’s allies. He has already managed to freeze military assistance to Ukraine after a scandalous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in order to resume it a week later.

This is not the first time that the United States has stopped aid to Ukraine. President Barack Obama has not put a single bullet on Kiev, although Congress allocated money for weapons. The first Trump administration had illegally confiscated funds intended to support Ukraine. Under Biden, the White House repeatedly разfroze packages of assistance to Kiev before a full-scale Russian invasion, and in early 2024 stopped the supply of weapons out of presence for four months.

The last pause, albeit relatively short compared to previous cases, clearly demonstrates the fragility of relations between Washington and Kiev. Arms supplies are a powerful tool for the influence of the White House on world politics. The way Trump uses this tool can lead to large-scale negative consequences not only for Ukraine, but also for the United States itself, even if the damage caused to the domestic interests of the country is assessed.
How the U.S. Helps Ukraine

In the last three years, the most important American program of military support for Ukraine has been the “Presidential Drawdown Authority” (PDA), which allows the president to allocate assistance directly from the Defense Ministry’s reserves – in the form of equipment, ammunition or services. Such assistance is transferred to the recipient country most quickly.

By default, the U.S. Aide-Aid Act allows you to transfer weapons worth no more than $100 million a year, but Congress has repeatedly raised this bar. As part of the PDA, Trump has several billion dollars at its disposal to support Kiev. To date, he has not yet used these funds. Nevertheless, the Pentagon continues to supply Ukraine with billions of dollars allocated under Biden. The aid was interrupted for a week after the scandal in the Oval Office, but now it has resumed. It is planned to transfer to Ukraine, including armored vehicles, which is now under repair, so that it will not be possible to send it until the summer.

Trump has the opportunity to stop these deliveries unilaterally, but he did not do so. However, the threat of such a development remains. Congress has virtually no authority in this matter, except for the right to determine the permissible amount of assignations every year.

The US Congress will not be able to prevent Trump, if he decides to stop aid to Ukraine unilaterally

The second most important thing after the PDA is occupied by the “Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) – a procurement financing program for the long-term needs of Ukraine. The initiative does not transfer military equipment and weapons from U.S. own stockpiles, but an order for production (or repair and modernization) or purchase from third-party suppliers.

USAI was introduced under Obama, but each subsequent administration implemented it incompletely inefficiently. Under Biden, more than $33 billion was allocated for purchases under the USAI, but at the end of its term, almost a third of this amount – $ 10 billion – remained undeveloped. The slow distribution of contracts for USAI has been a problem since the beginning of the war in 2022. Many weapons could be transferred to Kiev much earlier if the funds of the initiative were more resuscitrated. The exact cost of equipment and services that Ukraine failed to provide within the framework of USAI is unknown, but, most likely, this is a significant part of the budget of the program.

As for the supply of USAI, which is already engaged in the Ministry of Defense, then here Trump still has the opportunity to freeze them. In this case, Congress can challenge unfair enforcement of appropriations, but it does not have mechanisms for direct influence on the president’s actions. Eventually, the Trump administration confiscated USAI’s funds without any consequences for itself.
Benefits of support for Kiev

Since before the midterm elections for more than a year, and Trump cannot go for a third term, he has the opportunity to take the most radical steps. Among them is the suspension of arms supplies already paid for by the Biden administration, or “order to stop work” for contractors producing weapons. However, this is fraught with major damage to the US military-industrial complex, as well as other, broader economic consequences.

The fact that such measures were not taken indicates that the Trump administration at least partially understand the benefits that the US’s assistance to Ukraine brings. In the three years before the invasion in 2022, the average annual sales of American weapons was $161 billion. With the beginning of the full-scale war, this figure has increased significantly.

In total, in three years, U.S. defense enterprises earned almost $ 280 billion additionally. This amount is close to $ 300 billion, which, according to Trump, the United States spent to support Ukraine. In fact, Congress has allocated about $175 billion, and most of these funds returned to the country’s economy either through the USAI program (in return on PDA’s non-refundable funding) or by covering other defense spending. Trump himself recently admitted that the generally accepted estimate of the volume of American aid to Ukraine is much lower, but so far he persistently adheres to his own fantastic figures.

Kiev, US allies and representatives of the American industry need to convey to the Trump administration an argument about the benefits of military support for Ukraine. Previous attempts to do so did not reflect the extent of the profits that the United States has received. Approximately $90 billion of military aid, which will return to the country’s defense budget, fades with arms sales by tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.

How long this rise in the U.S. industry will last is an open question. Trump’s moves toward easing relations with Russia have caused alarm among U.S. partners dependent on their weapons. Defense spending in real terms is being reduced, but arms companies need additional revenue from foreign customers to support current growth. If it were not for foreign sales, Raytheon production lines, which produces Patriot air defense systems, would have been idle for years. Although the volume of orders for this system is quite large, its growth may not be as significant as Raytheon would like.

If it were not for foreign orders, including in the framework of assistance to Ukraine, the production of American anti-aircraft air defense systems would have been idle for years

While Patriot remains the most popular air defense system in NATO countries, but in the future it may face fierce competition from the Franco-Italian SAMP/T system. The demand for long-range air defense systems is in Denmark and Norway, and if earlier the advantage was Patriot, now both countries are likely to choose SAMP/T.

Some American weapons simply do not have direct competitors, but where competition exists, their market share can be intercepted by European and other international manufacturers. For Trump, obsessed with the idea of increasing exports and reducing the U.S. trade deficit to a minimum, this is a dubious result.

Although the trade deficit is not a particularly important economic indicator, it is undoubtedly in America’s interest to remain the main arsenal of the democratic world. Even if we discard the moral and strategic considerations, what would Trump prefer: the creation of new jobs in the US or in Europe? The answer to this question seems obvious.
What should the Trump administration do?

To build up the fluctuating trust in his administration, Trump needs to take a few key steps.

First, in response to Putin’s refusal to end the ceasefire that Ukraine supported, Trump should begin to increase maximum pressure on Russia. This can be done by tightening control over the implementation of sanctions, reducing the ceiling of prices for Russian oil, as well as increasing the volume of assistance to Ukraine. The latter in the short term can be ensured at the expense of the remaining PDA funds – this is several billion dollars.
Trump’s moves toward easing relations with Russia have caused alarm among US partners
Trump’s moves toward easing relations with Russia have caused alarm among US partners

In the medium and long term, Washington needs to sign an agreement with Kiev on the extraction of minerals in Ukraine, which will spell out real security guarantees. To make this deal more politically acceptable to some of his supporters, Trump can provide military aid through updating the “Lend-Lease” Act with adding the necessary allocations to replace American equipment, which will subsequently be paid from revenues from the development of Ukrainian resources.

Secondly, the United States needs to guarantee the full support of NATO, but on the new conditions that will be agreed by all members of the alliance at the upcoming summit in The Hague in June. Conditions should include new targets for defense spending of at least 3.5% of GDP of the member countries of the alliance, as well as the restructuring of the US military presence in Europe. The limited contingent of American troops should be kept permanently deployed in NATO frontline states instead of the current too large-scale and expensive rotational deployments in a large number of countries.

This will provide a greater deterrence of Russian aggression with a less load on the Pentagon budget. The construction of new U.S. military bases should also be financed by Europe. Such steps could lay the groundwork for the expansion of the US presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Thirdly, the president should instruct the Office of Management and Fiscal Affairs, together with the Pentagon and Congress, develop a plan to achieve defense spending of 5% of U.S. GDP by 2028. First, it is necessary to fix the articles related to national security in the budget. The activities of the Department of State Efficiency (DOGE) of Elon Musk in the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Energy should be immediately banned.

DOGE’s primitive, “sled-like” approach to mass staff cuts is not in favor of any federal agency, but these agencies, responsible for the US nuclear arsenal, are particularly damaging. Musk’s attempt to cut thousands of workers in one of the country’s key defense factories, which is fraught with undermining the ability of the United States to wage war, as well as supplying partners like Israel and Ukraine. Outdated bureaucratic structures of the Pentagon really need significant reforms, but this should be done with surgical accuracy. Indiscriminate dismissals will only lead to the fact that the country will shoot itself in the foot.

The “sled-like” approach to mass staff cuts is particularly damaging to the agencies responsible for the US nuclear arsenal

The alternative to the proposed measures is the defeat of all parties involved: the United States, Ukraine, allies and partners of the two countries. Productive and mutually beneficial relationships are still possible, and they are necessary if there is any hope of successfully resisting aggression from the countries of the anti-Western bloc CRINK (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea).

It is necessary to find a middle ground between the indecision and the slowness of the Biden administration and Trump’s impulsiveness and unpredictability. Allies need to be confident in U.S. strength, while enemies need to be careful. Refusal to support Ukraine will not put America first, but only make it lonely. Perhaps parts of the Trump electorate are necessary, but such a scenario is fraught with the collapse of exports and the immersion of the US economy in depression. At the same time, the provision of Ukraine with all the necessary weapons means the return of America weakened defense industry to life and the approach of lasting peace in Europe. No one wants it more than Ukrainians, and no one wants it less than Putin.