{"id":282474,"date":"2025-07-22T12:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T12:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/282474\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T12:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T12:25:09","slug":"trumps-shift-on-ukraine-has-been-dramatic-but-will-it-change-the-war-rajan-menon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/282474\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s shift on Ukraine has been dramatic \u2013\u00a0but will it change the war? | Rajan Menon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump presents himself as a peerless president, an unrivaled negotiator, even a \u201cgenius<\/a>\u201d. So it\u2019s a unique moment when he comes close \u2013 I emphasize the qualifier \u2013to conceding that another leader has outfoxed him. Trump suggested as much recently when characterizing Vladimir Putin\u2019s modus operandi. \u201cPutin,\u201d he told<\/a> reporters on 13 July, \u201creally surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then bombs everybody in the evening.\u201d Melania Trump may have contributed to this reassessment. As Trump recounted recently, when he told her about a \u201cwonderful conversation\u201d with the Russian leader, she responded<\/a>, \u201cOh, really? Another city was just hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s new take on Putin is a break with the past. His esteem for Putin\u2013whose decisions he has described<\/a> as \u201csavvy\u201d and \u201cgenius\u201d \u2013 has contrasted starkly with his derisive comments<\/a> about the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he memorably disrespected<\/a> during a White House meeting and even blamed<\/a> for starting the war.<\/p>\n

As recently as February, he declared<\/a> that Russia\u2019s invasion didn\u2019t matter to the United States because, unlike Europe, it was separated from Ukraine by \u201ca big, big beautiful ocean\u201d. He criticized<\/a> Joe Biden\u2019s assistance to Ukraine as a waste of taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n

Now, Trump has not only changed his view of Putin, stunning<\/a> many within his \u201cAmerica First\u201d MagaA movement; he\u2019s decided to start arming Ukraine. Well, sort of.<\/p>\n

Trump has gone beyond effectively conceding that Putin has played him. He has decided to sell military equipment to individual European countries so that they can supply Ukraine and restock their arsenals with purchases from the United States. The president formally announced the change during his 14 July meeting with<\/a> Mark Rutte, Nato\u2019s secretary general.<\/p>\n

There was more. Trump warned Putin that if he did not accept a ceasefire \u2013 which he has steadfastly refused, just as he has ignored Trump\u2019s demand to stop bombing Ukraine\u2019s cities \u2013 within 50 days, Russia would be slammed with tariffs as high as 100%<\/a>, as would countries that continued to trade with it after the deadline.<\/p>\n

Two things are clear. First, Trump\u2019s perspective on Putin has changed, unexpectedly and dramatically. Second, a war that Trump once said was none of America\u2019s business now apparently matters. The president said European countries would buy \u201ctop of the line<\/a>\u201d American military equipment worth \u201cbillions of dollars<\/a>\u201d to arm Ukraine. According to one report<\/a> citing \u201ca source familiar with the plan\u201d, the total will be $10bn.<\/p>\n

This all sounds like a very big deal. But here\u2019s where it becomes important to go beyond the headlines and sound bites and delve into the details.<\/p>\n

Take the $10bn figure. That\u2019s certainly not chump change. Moreover, the main piece of equipment specified so far, the Patriot<\/a> \u201clong range, high altitude, all weather\u201d missile defense system, will provide desperately needed relief to Ukrainian city dwellers, who have endured relentless waves of drone attacks \u2013 several hundred<\/a> a night \u2013 followed by missiles that slice through overwhelmed defenses. Ukraine has some Patriots but needs more: it\u2019s a vast country with a dozen cities whose populations exceed 400,000.<\/p>\n

However, a Patriot battery (launchers, missiles, a radar system, a control center, antenna masts, and a power generator) costs $1bn<\/a>, the missiles alone $4m apiece. Ukraine may not need 10 Patriot batteries, but even a smaller number will consume a large proportion of the $10bn package. The other system that has been mentioned is the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Jassm<\/a>), which combines stealth technology and GPS guidance with a 230-mile range. Ukraine will be able to use its American-made F-16 jets to fire Jassms into Russia from positions beyond the reach of Russian air defense systems. But a single Jassm costs around $1.5m<\/a>, so the costs will add up quickly. Additional items have been mentioned but only generically; still, their price must also be figured in, bearing in mind that the war could drag on. So, $10bn could be depleted quickly.<\/p>\n

Moreover, beyond a certain point the US cannot sell equipment from its own stocks without regard to its military readiness requirements. Precisely for that reason, the defense department recently declined<\/a> to send Ukraine some of the equipment promised under Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

And Trump has not said that there will be follow-on sales to benefit Ukraine once the $10bn mark is reached. Even if he were to change his mind, individual European countries would be able to buy only so much American weaponry without straining their finances, especially because France and Italy have opted out<\/a> of the arrangement. Trump has been uninterested<\/a> in joining the recent move by the UK and the EU to impose a $47.60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil sales, toughening the $60 limit the west enacted in 2022. Finally, Trump isn\u2019t going to resume Biden\u2019s multi-billion-dollar military assistance packages \u2013 70-plus tranches of equipment, according to the DoD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s 50-day tariff deadline permits Putin to continue his summer offensive, and may even provide an incentive to accelerate it. Russia has already shrugged off Trump\u2019s tariff threat. Its exports to the US in 2024 amounted to $526<\/a>m, a tiny fraction of its global sales.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Trump\u2019s secondary tariffs will hurt Russia, which earned $192bn<\/a> in 2024 from its global exports of oil and related products, much of that sum from India and China<\/a>. If the president follows through with his threat, Beijing will surely retaliate, and the consequence will be painful: the United States exports to China totaled $144bn<\/a> last year. Will Trump proceed anyway, and during his ongoing trade wars, which have already started increasing prices<\/a> in the US? His track record on tariff threats leaves room for doubt.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s leaders are understandably elated by Trump\u2019s reappraisal of Putin. But it\u2019s premature to conclude that it\u2019s a turning point that could change the war\u2019s trajectory. Washington\u2019s new policy may prove far less momentous than Maga critics fear and not quite as transformative as Kyiv and its western supporters hope for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump presents himself as a peerless president, an unrivaled negotiator, even a \u201cgenius\u201d. So it\u2019s a unique…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-282474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114896877835277987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}