President Donald Trump has a record of peacemaking that should entitle him to the patience and trust of his supporters.
Moreover, the president understands that negotiating a deal requires one thing above all: leverage.
Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Sunday evening, Trump confirmed that he would follow through on a pledge made early last week, when he promised to send fresh shipments of defensive weapons to war-torn Ukraine.
“I haven’t agreed on the number yet,” Trump said in a clip posted to the social media platform X. “But they’re going to have some because they do need protection.”
Moments later, the president made it clear that the U.S. would send Patriot surface-to-air missiles. He also blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for making this new weapons commitment necessary.
“We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need,” Trump said, “because Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening. So there’s a little bit of a problem there. I don’t like it.”
President Trump says that he’s sending a round of Patriot missiles to Ukraine and SLAMS Putin unlike ever before:
“We’re going to send them Patriots.”
“Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and bombs everybody in the evening. I don’t like it.” pic.twitter.com/8Q9CNrIav0
— The Washington Observer (@WashObserver) July 13, 2025
Of course, many of the president’s MAGA supporters will greet this as bad news. Still, one must consider the full context.
Will Trump’s strategy work – will this give him more leverage to push Putin toward peace?
For one thing, Trump emphasized the weapons’ defensive nature. He certainly has no interest in expanding America’s involvement in the dreadful Russia-Ukraine War.
Secondly, he insisted that the new weapons will cost the United States nothing. Instead, as he explained to reporters in the clip above, the European Union will “reimburse” the U.S. for the military equipment.
That seems like a big deal. Indeed, Trump identified America’s lopsided financial commitment to the Ukraine War as a major grievance.
“We’re in for about $350 billion,” he said, “[and] Europe is in for $100 billion. That’s a lot of money — a hundred — but they should be in actually for more than us.”
Finally, the president’s record of brokering peace should command our attention and respect. Late last month alone, for instance, Trump secured an end to conflicts in the Middle East and Africa.
No doubt MAGA still wants out of America’s commitment to Ukraine and perhaps even to NATO. After all, more than 80 years spent defending Europe seems like quite enough.
Moreover, the time has come to admit that President Woodrow Wilson’s interventionist foreign policy has failed. Only a return to the foreign policy of President George Washington would truly qualify as “America First.”
Putin, of course, knows this about the mood of Trump’s base. The Russian president, therefore, has no reason to come to the bargaining table.
Thus, if Trump believes that he needs leverage to finally stop the killing, and if the Patriot missiles give him that leverage, then so be it.
The president has earned our trust many times over.
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