President Donald Trump on Monday confirmed that the U.S. has agreed to sell arms to NATO just moments after he said Russian President Vladimir Putin has 50 days to secure a peace deal with Ukraine or face “100%” tariffs.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Trump called him on Thursday to confirm he wanted to enter into a deal with NATO allies to sell them arms for aid to Ukraine.
Trump said billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. arms would be purchased from allies like Germany, Finland and Denmark that will be “quickly distributed” to Ukraine.
“We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons and they’re going to be paying for them,” Trump said, noting that NATO would coordinate the weapons transfers. “They feel strongly about it, and we feel strongly about it, too. But we’re in it for a lot of money and we don’t want to do it anymore.”’
Trump made the announcement during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who heralded the president’s decision as “really big.”
Rutte, who said the decision was built on the “tremendous success” of last month’s NATO summit when nearly every nation in the alliance agreed to increase their defense spending to reach 5% of their nation’s GDP, called the move “logical.”
