Trump could seal his peace deal with a $50B arms sale to Ukraine
President Donald Trump's administration is negotiating trade deals with as many as 75 countries to increase their purchase of U.S.-made goods, according to the White House. Well, one country that is champing at the bit to purchase American goods is Ukraine, which has proposed to buy $50 billion worth of U.S.-made weapons to deter Russia. Trump should approve that arms sale as part of a final peace deal.
A weapons sale would advance his goals of ending the war while creating good manufacturing jobs for American workers and strengthening the U.S. defense industrial base.
Trump is asking Ukraine to make a number of difficult concessions, including giving up both territory and its quest to join NATO. In exchange, Ukraine will be 'compensated financially' to rebuild its country from the damage inflicted by Russia, as well as unspecified 'robust' security guarantees to ensure that Russia does not violate the armistice Trump negotiates.
Kyiv wants peace but is understandably concerned about those security guarantees. Ukrainians know that Russian President Vladimir Putin first invaded their country while Barack Obama was in the White House, largely paused his aggression under Trump, then invaded again after Joe Biden took office. What is to stop Putin from doing the same when Trump exits the White House in 2029? Putin could pocket any territorial concessions Ukraine makes today, take advantage of sanctions relief to rebuild his economy and his military (both of which have been devastated by the war), and then resume his invasion once Trump has left office — especially if he views the next American president as weak.
The only way to stop Putin from doing this — and cement Trump's legacy as a peacemaker — is to make sure Ukraine has a military deterrent so powerful that Russia would not dare attack again. A promise to sell U.S. weapons would give Ukraine confidence it could build that deterrent. Few countries possess the weapons systems Ukraine needs or the industrial capacity to produce them. And there is no doubt that China, Iran and North Korea — even if there is a peace agreement — will continue to provide robust assistance to Russia in preparation for its next attempt to conquer Ukraine.
To be clear: Ukraine is not asking U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill for these weapons. It wants to buy them. There are multiple ways to facilitate such a purchase. For example, Poland is currently buying U.S. weapons using Foreign Military Financing direct loans, which come with interest that must be paid to the U.S. government — billions of dollars' worth of Abrams tanks, Apache helicopters, airspace reconnaissance equipment, high-mobility artillery rocket systems, and Patriot air-defense batteries.
The United States can use the exact same mechanism to sell arms to Ukraine. We could also sell Ukraine weapons using a lend-lease program modeled on the one the United States used to arm Britain during World War II. No legislation would be required; the president already has the authority to do this under current law. Any interest-bearing loans could be backed by Ukraine's massive mineral resources as collateral. We could also allow Ukraine to use frozen Russian assets to purchase weapons.
Such arms sales would not only help secure peace in Ukraine but also benefit the U.S. by helping to revitalize our defense industrial base, which requires foreign military sales to keep production lines hot. Consider our tank and armored vehicle production capability, for example, which was on the verge of collapse a decade ago. The Obama administration tried to shut down America's only tank factory, in Lima, Ohio, whose production had been reduced to a single tank per month thanks to defense spending cuts.
Congressional Republicans, led by then-Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), saved the plant largely through foreign military sales to U.S. allies and partners such as Poland, Romania, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Such sales helped keep not only the plant open, saving Ohio manufacturing jobs, but also kept the unit cost of each tank lower for the U.S. Army — saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
It is a similar story with the Patriot air-defense system. In 2018, the United States was building Patriot interceptors at an anemic rate of 350 a year. Thanks to the aid package Congress approved for Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine last year, that production is nearly doubling to 650 a year. Now Ukraine wants to buy at least 10 Patriot systems from the United States, worth more than $10 billion, which could increase U.S. Patriot production even further. Keeping production lines for the Patriot system going is critical to U.S. national security and will create jobs for American workers in Missouri, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Pennsylvania.
If Trump is concerned that an arms deal could be an incentive for Ukraine to resist his peace efforts, he could make the sale contingent on Ukraine's agreement to a final peace deal. And if Ukraine agrees to peace but Russia refuses, Trump can use the arms deal to deliver on his promise to increase U.S. military support for Ukraine to force Putin to the negotiating table.
The bottom line? Selling arms to Ukraine advances Trump's objectives, from trade to national security. It costs taxpayers nothing (if anything, we earn interest on the loans), creates good manufacturing jobs for American workers, strengthens our capacity to build weapons critical for America's self-defense and could be the final piece of the puzzle in a deal ending the war in Ukraine.
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