The U.S. is to end long-running military assistance for European countries close to Russia, as it pushes the continent to play a greater role in its own defence, an official in one of the countries confirmed on Friday.
“Last week, the U.S. Defense Department informed the countries that, starting from its next financial period, funding will be reduced to zero,” the defence policy director in Lithuania’s defence ministry, Vaidotas Urbelis, told reporters.
The decision comes as U.S. President Donald Trump struggles to end Moscow’s three-and-a-half-year invasion of Ukraine.
Urbelis confirmed reports in The Washington Post and The Financial Times citing unnamed officials saying the move was part of Trump’s efforts to cut U.S. expenditure abroad.
The FT said U.S. officials had told European diplomats last week that Washington would no longer fund programs to train and equip eastern European militaries along Russia’s border.
The Washington Post said the funding to be cut was worth several hundreds of millions of dollars.
In Lithuania’s case, the cuts would impact “the purchase of U.S. weapons and other equipment, and training,” Urbelis said.
He added that it “will not have an impact on the U.S. troop presence in the region,” which was funded through a separate U.S. budget allocation.
A White House official said the move hewed to a January executive order Trump had signed that reevaluated U.S. foreign aid.
“This action has been coordinated with European countries in line with the executive order and the president’s longstanding emphasis on ensuring Europe takes more responsibility for its own defence,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Trump has long been sceptical of both U.S. defence spending in Europe and aid for Ukraine, pushing some of Washington’s closest allies to play a greater role on both fronts.
The Lithuanian defence ministry official said that the U.S. funding for training and equipping its military covered between a third and 80 per cent of total military aid received by the country.
Estonia’s Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur told the Postimees daily that he viewed the U.S. move as “especially symbolic, in a negative way.”
Trump really could end the Russian invasion of Ukraine if he were to impose real sanctions on Russia and give Ukraine sufficient armaments, but he is doing the opposite: rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin, and now this – suspending military aid to the Baltics, countries that could not militarily resist a Russian invasion without Nato support. Trump is absolutely destroying American foreign policy – for what? Now that we have a Fascist state south of our border are we feeling more secure?
The big powers are on their way out. Russia will collapse economically within 2 years; China is well on it’s way to a Japanese style ” lost decade”, and the US is beginning to separate into red and blue states, a “soft secession”. The EU, along with the smaller economies in North and South America, Asia and Africa, will benefit in the long run; they’ll rise together in influence and affluence. Short term pain, long term gain. The Universe is unfolding as it should, or so it seems to me.