Trump Changes His Mind About Letting Ukraine Build Patriot Missiles

President Donald Trump backed away on Friday from a promise to let Ukraine build its own Patriot missiles. The Patriot system is one of the most reliable weapons Ukraine uses to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. Trump had made the original promise on July 8 during a NATO summit meeting in Ankara, Turkey. He met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky there and said, 'We'll give them the right to make Patriots.'

At that meeting, Trump added, 'We'll show them how to do it.' His words surprised many people because the Patriot system uses some of America's most advanced military technology. Ukraine had been warning that it was running low on Patriot interceptors — the missiles used to knock enemy rockets out of the sky. Without them, Russia's powerful ballistic missiles are much harder to stop.

On Friday, Trump told his cabinet that 'we have not agreed to that.' He said he changed his mind because it is risky to share such powerful technology with another country. 'Those people you give the technology, they could someday turn on you,' Trump said. He pointed to history as a reason to be careful about who receives American weapons and secrets.

Trump used Iran as an example of this risk. In the 1970s, the United States sold Iran advanced F-14 fighter jets when the two countries were allies. After a revolution in 1979, Iran became an enemy of the United States. Some of those same jets were recently destroyed in airstrikes, showing how weapons given to friends can end up in the hands of enemies.

Building Patriot missiles inside Ukraine would be a huge and complicated project. American defense companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin would need to work with Ukrainian factories and workers. The process could take months or even years to finish. On top of that, any factory Ukraine built to make the missiles would quickly become a target for Russian bombs.

Trump's statements have been going back and forth on the Ukraine war for some time. He sometimes supports Ukraine's fight against Russia, and other times he seems to favor Russia's point of view. On Friday, he blamed former President Joe Biden for giving away too many weapons, but then said he had also sent weapons to Ukraine himself. 'Without the Javelins, that war would have been a one-day war,' Trump said, referring to the anti-tank missiles he approved sending to Ukraine.