Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told President Donald Trump on Friday that his country will trade the United States thousands of drones for tomahawks.
Zelenskyy visited the White House for a meeting with Trump one day after the U.S. President spoke with Russian President Vladmir Putin about the war. The Ukrainian president told reporters, in front of Trump, that they would be open to making a trade with the United States. Trump said he would rather get the war over before tomahawks are needed. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Trump Lays Out ‘America First’ Plan For Helping Ukraine End War, Casts Doubt On Putin-Zelenskyy Meeting)
“That’s the problem. We need tomahawks. And we need a lot of other things that we’ve been sending over the last four years to Ukraine,” Trump said to a question about whether the U.S. needs such weapons for future conflicts. “We’ve been, you know, we gave we gave them a lot. Now we have a different situation. We send it to the European Union. They pay for it, all that, and they have plenty of money. But we — just beyond the money, you know, we need tomahawks.”
“And we need a lot of other weapons that we’re sending to Ukraine. And one of the reasons we want to get this war over is exactly that. It’s not easy for us to give — you’re talking about massive numbers of very powerful weapons,” Trump continued. “So that’s one of the things we’ll be talking about. Hopefully they won’t need it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over with without thinking about tomahawks. ”
Zelenskyy then followed up on the president’s remarks by suggesting they would trade the U.S. drones for some Tomahawks, arguing that both should be needed by America.
“But United States is a very strong production and United States has tomahawks and other missiles, very strong missiles, but they can have our thousands of drones. That’s why, where we can work together, where we can strengthen American production,” Zelenskyy said.
Fox News’ Peter Doocy interjected, clarifying that Zelenskyy was suggesting a trade and then asking Trump what he thought of the proposal and whether he would be interested in Ukrainian drones.
“We are, yeah,” Trump began. “We have a lot of drones right now. We build our own drones, but we also buy drones from others, and they make a very good drone. Drone warfare has really come to the fore over the last couple of years because of this war. I will say there’s nothing like the jets.”
The president then went on to talk about American jets, including B-2 bombers.
“You never know what’s going to happen … So we’re going to be talking about tomahawks, and would much rather have them not need tomahawks. Would much rather have the war be over, to be honest. Because, you know, we’re in it to get the war over. We’re not – we’re selling a lot of different types of weapons, as you know, to the European Union. We’re not in it for that. We’re in it to get it over,” the president continued.
Trump argued that the war in the Middle East was “far more complicated” and because he was able to get that done he has hope for the Russia-Ukraine war.
Prior to Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy, the president and Putin agreed to meet in Budapest, Hungary, following a first round of diplomacy between Russian advisors and U.S. officials under Secretary of State Marco Rubio next week.
“I actually believe that the Success in the Middle East will help in our negotiation in attaining an end to the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump said Thursday on Truth Social. “President Putin thanked the First Lady, Melania, for her involvement with children. He was very appreciative, and said that this will continue. We also spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over.”
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