Trump says he’d ask Europe to pay for rebuilding stockpiles sent to Ukraine if reelected
Former President Trump said in a new campaign video that if reelected, he would ask Europe to pay for the U.S. to rebuild its weapons stockpiles, which Washington has used to help supply the war in Ukraine.
“Less than three years ago, I’d fully rebuilt the United States military and steered America into such a strong global position,” Trump said in the video released on Tuesday.
“Twenty-nine months later, the arsenals are empty, the stockpiles are bare, the Treasury is drained, the ranks are being hollowed out, our country has been totally humiliated, and we have a corrupt, compromised president, crooked Joe Biden, who is dragging us into World War III,” he added.
Trump accused America’s European allies of contributing a “tiny fraction” of the assistance to Ukraine and slammed the Biden administration for not already making such a request for reimbursement, suggesting that President Biden is “too weak and too disrespected to even ask.”
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The discussion of U.S. weapons stockpiles comes in the wake of Biden’s controversial decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. Cluster munitions, which release multiple submunitions over a wide area, are banned by more than 100 countries due to the risks that unexploded submunitions can pose to civilians.
Biden has defended the “difficult” decision, describing the munitions as providing a “transition period” for the U.S. to produce more 155mm artillery.
“This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” Biden said, adding the cluster munitions would only be provided during a “transition period” while the U.S. renews its supplies.
Trump has criticized the decision to provide Kyiv with cluster munitions, accusing Biden of “dragging us further toward World War III.”
“We should not be sending Ukraine our last stockpiles at a time when our own arsenals, according to Crooked Joe Biden, are so perilously diminished,” he added.
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