Donald Trump has backed off a promise to let Ukraine manufacture its own Patriot air defense interceptors, telling reporters that handing over the underlying technology was \u201ca hard thing to give away\u201d during a cabinet meeting at Camp David.<\/p>\n
The retreat, billed by the White House as \u201csomething different\u201d for the cabinet to experience together, was the first such meeting at the presidential compound of Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n
It also became the venue for the US president to unpick, in real time, a commitment he made to Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> just a few days earlier.<\/p>\n Asked whether he was ready to grant Kyiv a license to build Patriots domestically \u2013 something he had suggested at a Nato summit<\/a> in Turkey just this month, and which the Ukrainian president described as a productive topic in their White House meeting on Tuesday \u2013 Trump was noncommittal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have not agreed to that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about it, but it\u2019s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology.\u201d<\/p>\n Giving away the weapons carried its own risks, he added: \u201cThey can suddenly turn on you. You know that is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n The interceptor travels at \u201c8,600 miles an hour\u201d, Trump explained, adding for context: \u201cIf you go 60, it gets to be a little fast.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on to recall an occasion on which five missiles were fired \u201cat Jordan\u201d and were shot down in sequence \u2013 rendered by the president as \u201cbing bing bing bing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody else has that capacity,\u201d he said of the system, before concluding that Washington \u201cwill be building many plants\u201d to produce Patriots and Tomahawk missiles domestically \u2013 just not, for now, in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n The reversal is likely to unsettle Kyiv<\/a>, which has spent the past year lobbying for both more interceptors and the means to produce its own, amid a global shortage that has been compounded by the volume of Patriot and Tomahawk stock expended in Washington\u2019s confrontation with Iran.<\/p>\n Trump touched on that conflict too, telling reporters the US would be \u201chitting them very hard\u201d if talks broke down, and dismissing Iran\u2019s military as effectively hollowed out. \u201cThey have no navy \u2026 they have no anti-aircraft,\u201d he complained, comparing the controversial five-month campaign favorably with US wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Korea, and arguing in each case that the war lasted \u201cmany years\u201d, whereas his administration had achieved more, in less time. His stated goals for the campaign have repeatedly shifted.<\/p>\n An expert analysis of the Pentagon\u2019s own arsenals tell a different story: the Center for Strategic and International Studies says two-thirds<\/a> of the department\u2019s Patriot interceptors have been used, perhaps prompting a $58.6bn army contract<\/a> with Lockheed Martin to rebuild supplies, along with a recent White House request to Congress for tens of billions of dollars more<\/a> in emergency funding.<\/p>\n