OPINION
On March 24, a new round of talks between the Ukrainian and American delegations took place in Riyadh — and, as with previous meetings, it resulted in no significant breakthroughs. Ukraine has already suffered from Donald Trump’s impulsive decisions, such as the unlawful suspension and subsequent resumption of military aid. If Trump once again decides to stop U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, Congress would be powerless to stop him, according to The Insider’s military analyst Colby Badhwar. The only real check holding Trump back, he suggests, is the benefit military contracts bring to the U.S. defense industry. However, the American president has another option at his disposal: in response to Vladimir Putin’s unwillingness to make genuine steps toward a ceasefire, Trump could escalate both sanctions and military support for Ukraine. This approach would not only align with U.S. national interests — but also help repair strained relations with Washington’s allies.
With the war in Ukraine now in its fourth year, Kyiv finds itself not only under bombardment from the Russian military, but also at the mercy of the political chaos engulfing Washington. While the Biden Administration was predictably slow and indecisive, the Trump Administration’s approach to foreign policy is giving America’s partners whiplash. A few days after the contentious Oval Office meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, the United States paused security assistance to Ukraine, only to reinstate it a week later.
Washington temporarily freezing aid to Ukraine is of course not a new development in the relationship. Despite Congress authorizing and appropriating funds for lethal military aid as far back as 2015, President Obama never delivered Ukraine a single bullet. The first Trump Administration infamously engaged in its own illegal impoundment of appropriated security assistance for Ukraine, and the Biden Administration froze aid packages multiple times prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion. Even in the first four months of 2024, Ukraine had to contend with the Biden Administration freezing commitments from U.S. military stocks.
The latest pause following the direct spat between Zelensky and Trump, while quite short in comparison to previous instances, underscores the fragility of the relationship between the two countries. The White House maintains tremendous leverage through its ability to slow down or accelerate the flow of weapons. How President Trump decides to wield this power has huge ramifications not just for the war in Ukraine, but for the United States too — even when viewed through a very narrow lens of self-interest.
How the U.S. structures its military aid to Ukraine
For the past three years, the most important U.S. security assistance program for Ukraine has been the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the President to grant defense articles and services from the inventory of the Department of Defense (DoD).
By default, the Foreign Assistance Act only allows for such grants up to an aggregate value of $100 million every year. Congress has increased that ceiling on numerous occasions, and as of today, President Trump still has several billions of dollars in unexpired authority at his disposal should he choose to execute new drawdowns. To date, he has not done so. In January, when Trump was moving back in to the White House, the DoD was still in the process of delivering billions worth of equipment from drawdowns that had been announced by President Biden. Aside from the aforementioned weeklong pause, those deliveries have continued. Included in those drawdowns are deliveries of armored vehicles that are not expected to arrive in Ukraine until the summer, as they are still undergoing refurbishment.
The President could have unilaterally terminated all these ongoing deliveries immediately upon entering office, but he elected not to do so. This remains a constant risk though. Congress has essentially no power in the process aside from their ability to determine the authorized aggregate value of drawdowns every year.
Congress has essentially no power to stop Trump from unilaterally terminating all these ongoing deliveries.
Second to PDA is the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), a program which finances the procurement of longer-term needs for Ukraine. Initially established by Congress during the Obama Administration, USAI has been totally mismanaged by every successive administration. Over $33 billion was made available for USAI during the Biden Administration, and although all of those funds were committed to different procurement projects by the end of his term, over $10 billion had still not actually been committed to defense contractors. The glacial pace of awarding USAI contracts has been a problem since the beginning of the full-scale war, and as a result, Ukraine has gone without much needed weapons that could have been delivered sooner if those funds had been managed responsibly. The exact value of defense articles and services financed by USAI that remain undelivered is impossible to know, but it is likely a significant majority.
For USAI procurements that are being actively managed by the DoD, the President still retains the ability to withhold the promised security assistance to Ukraine. Congress has grounds to raise protest with the President should he not faithfully execute his duty to deliver duly passed appropriations, but the legislative body nevertheless lacks any means of direct recourse in the event that the President still refuses to deliver. Ultimately, the first Trump Administration faced no immediate sanction for their impoundment of USAI funds. It is up to Congress and American voters to impose political consequences for those actions.
The benefits of supporting Kyiv
But with midterms still well over a year away, and with President Trump ineligible for a third term, his administration could conceivably choose not to deliver weapons the Biden Administration already paid for. His White House could even go so far as to issue “stop work orders” to the contractors producing those weapons, but this would be deeply injurious to the United States’ defense industrial base and would have wider reaching economic ramifications.
That such drastic steps have not been taken suggests there is at least some appreciation of the fact that the United States has benefitted from the support it has provided to Ukraine. Over the three years prior to the full-scale invasion, U.S. arms sales averaged $161.1 billion per year.
In the three years since, those averages have been exceeded each year, with the cumulative total coming in at $279.3 billion more than what would have been expected had pre-2022 levels remained stable. That is remarkably close to the $300 billion that President Trump claims, without evidence, that the United States has spent supporting Ukraine. The reality is Congress has appropriated approximately $175 billion, and much of those funds have gone straight back into the American economy — either through the USAI program in order to replace what was granted through PDA, or to fund other DoD expenses. Trump himself recently acknowledged that the consensus figure for U.S. support is much lower than he is wont to claim, though he is still stubbornly clinging to his much larger fantasy number, at least for now.
This is the case that Kyiv, its allies, and U.S. industry need to be making to the Trump Administration: that the delivery of military aid to Ukraine actually benefits America. So far, public efforts to do so have not adequately captured the magnitude of the boon that the United States has enjoyed. The approximately $90 billion in security assistance funding appropriated by Congress that will flow back into America’s defense industrial base pales in comparison to that $280 billion in additional arms sales to U.S. partners as a result of so much weaponry being transferred to Ukraine.
The longevity of that boon to American industry is now in question though. President Trump’s overtures to Russia have caused alarm among partners who depend on American arms. At a time when U.S. defense spending is currently shrinking in real terms due to Congress passing a full-year continuing resolution, the defense industry needs those additional dollars from international customers if it is to maintain the ramp up of production that is already underway. If it weren’t for foreign sales, the PATRIOT production line would have been sitting idle for years. While it has a healthy order book today, it may not continue to grow as much as Raytheon would like.
If it weren’t for foreign sales, the PATRIOT production line would have been sitting idle for years.
Despite being the most popular air defense system among NATO members, it will face stiff new competition from the Franco-Italian SAMP/T. Denmark and Norway are both in the market for a long range and high-altitude air defense system, and whereas PATRIOT probably had the edge before, SAMP/T is now the likely choice for both countries. This is just the tip of a looming iceberg that the Trump Administration is steaming towards.
While American defense contractors can rely on the fact that they simply have no direct competitors for many of their product offerings, where competition does exist, they stand to lose market share to European or other international firms. This does not seem to be an optimal outcome for a man obsessed with boosting exports in order to minimize America’s trade deficit. Though the trade deficit is not a particularly important economic metric, it is unquestionably in America’s interests to remain the primary arsenal of the free and democratic world. Even setting aside the moral and strategic case, would President Trump rather have those good paying manufacturing jobs in the United States, or in Europe? That should be an easy answer.
What should the Trump Administration do?
To shore up wavering confidence in his Administration, Trump need only take a few key steps.
Firstly, in response to President Putin rejecting the unconditional and total ceasefire proposal that Trump put forward — and that Ukraine agreed to — the American President should adopt a maximum pressure campaign against Russia. This would be implemented through a combination of rigorous enforcement of sanctions, a reduction in the oil price cap, and an escalation in security assistance to Ukraine. This can be sustained in the short-term through the several billion in remaining PDA.
Trump’s moves toward easing relations with Russia have raised concerns among U.S. allies.
Photo: Chris McGrath / Getty Images
In the medium- to long-term, a deal on Ukraine’s resources — one that includes real security guarantees — should be signed. To make it more politically palatable for his supporters, future security assistance could be delivered through renewed “lend-lease” legislation, with the addition of the necessary appropriations to replace U.S. equipment, which would then be paid back from the proceeds of resource development in Ukraine.
Secondly, the United States would reaffirm its total commitment to NATO, but on new terms which would be agreed to by all members this June at the upcoming Hague Summit. Such a proposal would include new defense spending targets, which should be at least 3.5% of GDP, and a restructuring of U.S. military presence on the continent. American forces should be permanently deployed in frontline member states in reduced numbers, rather than the current, large, unnecessarily expensive rotational deployments that span across numerous countries. This would provide greater deterrence to Russian aggression at reduced burden to the Pentagon’s budget. The construction of the new permanent bases should also be funded by Europe. These steps would go a long way towards allowing the United States to make meaningful progress on its pivot to the Indo-Pacific.
Thirdly, the President would direct the Office of Management and Budget to work with the Pentagon and Congress on a plan to get to a 5% of GDP expenditure on defense by 2028. This would start with focusing efforts on passing the national security provisions of Congress’ reconciliation package as soon as possible. Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative also needs to be barred immediately from affecting the work of the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy (DoE).
No corner of the federal government is being improved by their sledgehammer approach to cuts, but nowhere is this more damaging than at DoD and DoE, the latter of which manages the production of America’s nuclear weapons. Reported efforts to cut 1000 employees from one of the country’s key ammunition plants would leave America unable to sustain a war, or even to adequately supply partners like Israel and Ukraine. There is a desperate need for meaningful reforms to the DoD’s archaic bureaucracy, but this needs to be done with a scalpel by those who know the difference between fat, tissue, and bone. Indiscriminate layoffs will only shatter the country’s own legs. The DoD’s workforce and the defense industry that supports America’s war fighters need to have confidence in the management of the Department.
No corner of the federal government is being improved by their sledgehammer approach to cuts, but nowhere is this more damaging than at DoD and DoE, the latter of which manages the production of America’s nuclear weapons.
The alternative is a lose-lose for all parties involved: the United States, Ukraine, and all other allies and partners. A productive and mutually beneficial relationship is still possible, and it is truly necessary if there is to be any hope of successfully resisting the ongoing aggression from the CRINKS.
There must be a middle ground between the Biden Administration’s indecisive predictability and President Trump’s chaotic unpredictability. Allies should have confidence in Washington, while enemies should be forced to tread carefully. Abandoning Ukraine would not put America first. Instead, it would make America alone. Some narrow slice of the American electorate might like the sound of that, but such would be a dark reality in which America’s economy plunges into depression following a collapse in exports. Keeping Ukraine well supplied means that the ongoing revitalization of America’s atrophied defense industrial base continues, bringing a lasting peace in Europe closer to fruition. Nobody wants that more than the Ukrainians do, and nobody wants it less than President Putin.