PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump suggested Monday that he might reverse President Joe Biden’s recent decision to allow Ukrainian forces to use U.S. long-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Trump last month called Biden’s decision “stupid.” He also expressed anger that his new administration was not consulted before Biden took the step. With the easing of restrictions, Biden gave Ukraine long-sought permission to use the Army Tactical Missile. System provided by the US to attack Russian positions hundreds of kilometers from the border.
“I don’t think that should have been allowed, not if there was a possibility — and certainly not just weeks before I take over,” Trump said during a wide-ranging news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort. do they do that without asking what I thought? I wouldn’t have let him do that. I think it was a big mistake.”
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Trump’s scathing criticism of the Biden administration’s move comes as the Democratic administration looks to push out every last dollar already allocated to Ukraine to help fend off Russia’s invasion before Trump’s Jan. 20 takes office, while future aid is uncertain.
But even as Biden seeks to deliver more weapons and other aid to Ukraine in his final five weeks in office, the moment underlines that it is Trump who has the greatest influence on how Ukraine can use its US-supplied arsenal in the long term. to use. It is a crucial leverage that he could use to try to fulfill his campaign promise of bringing about a quick end to the conflict.
Asked if he would consider reversing the Biden administration’s decision, Trump said: “Maybe so. I think it was very stupid to do this.”
The White House has pushed back on Trump’s criticism, noting that the decision was made after months of discussions that began before last month’s election.
“The only thing I can assure you is that in the conversations we’ve had with them since the election, and that we’ve had at different levels, we have articulated the logic behind it, the thinking behind it, why we did it. ,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said of the current administration’s coordination with the outgoing administration.
Trump’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been under scrutiny since his 2016 campaign for president, when he called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent . Trump publicly sided with Putin on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help him, and Trump has praised the Russian leader, even calling him “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.
Vice President-elect JD Vance has said that while the US has differences with Russia, it was counterproductive to approach Moscow as an enemy.
Trump on Monday renewed his call for both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war, calling the death and despair caused by the conflict “carnage.”
But Trump also seemed to acknowledge that it could be difficult to find an immediate endgame to the war — something he previously said he could do within 24 hours of taking office.
“I think the Middle East will be in a good place,” Trump said, referring to the conflict in Gaza and a restive Syria following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. ‘I think it will actually become more difficult between Russia and Ukraine. situation.”
Trump declined to say whether he has spoken to Putin since the election.
Zelenskyy met with Trump in Paris earlier this month as the president-elect visited France for the reopening of Notre Dame. Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have made strong efforts to get Trump to maintain support for Ukraine.
But the situation on the ground in Ukraine remains complicated, as both sides struggle for a battlefield advantage that will give them leverage in any negotiations to end the nearly three-year war.
The Pentagon last week unveiled U.S. intelligence predicting that Russia could soon relaunch its deadly new intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine.
Putin first deployed the missile last month, days after Biden eased restrictions on Ukraine. Putin warned the West that Russia’s next use could be against Ukraine’s NATO allies, who allowed Kiev to use their longer-range missiles to attack inside Russia.
Biden agreed to ease restrictions after Zelensky and many of his Western supporters pressured Biden for months. They argued that the US ban had made it impossible for Ukraine to try to stop Russian attacks on its cities and power grids.
The outgoing president finally made the decision last month, amid concerns about Russia’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to help reclaim land in the Kursk border area that Ukraine seized this year.
