WASHINGTON — Hours after throwing some stinging jabs towards NATO members, President Donald Trump ended his trip to Ankara today with what appeared to be a more upbeat attitude toward the alliance and toward Ukraine, which he said could soon be allowed to produce their own Patriot air defense systems.
“I just want to say there was tremendous love in that room,” Trump told reporters at the NATO Leaders Summit today, also praising the alliance’s “unification.”
“We kept it short . … It was very smart people, and they have a lot of good in their heart, not evil, good,” he later added.
Trump’s comments came at the tail end of the highly anticipated summit focusing on a range of issues, from the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine to alliance defense spending levels. Earlier in the summit, Trump had once again brought up his desire to control Greenland, pointedly criticized the Spanish government, and threatened to pull US troops out of Europe.
But by the end he praised NATO members on their work towards reaching the 5 percent GDP on defense and national security investments by 2035, while saying those buys should support the US economy if the weapons producers can ramp up quick enough.
“They want the American equipment because it works better … and to that end, I provided other leaders with an update on the steps we’re taking to rapidly scale up production in the United States,” Trump told reporters.
“They don’t really want to get it in four years, five years, they want to get it in like a week,” he later added.
In a similar vein, NATO leaders announced $3 billion in new deals with US weapons producers, which included UK plans to spend $254 million on Lockheed Martin’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) program, Denmark announcing plans to acquire two Boeing P-8 Poseidon aircraft and NATO allies jointly acquiring up to five Northrop Grumman-produced MQ-4C Tritons.
In another surprise twist, sitting next to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy late today, Trump floated the idea of providing Ukraine with the “license” to produce the Patriot air defense system. While he did not disclose what that might include or look like, Kyiv has been running through its supply of Patriot interceptors and making public pleas for more.
“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool,” Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today.
“This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving ‘em enough,” he added. “I say, make them yourself. We haven’t informed the company of that yet, but that’ll work out all right.
Lockheed Martin, which produces PAC-3 interceptors, did not respond to Breaking Defense’s request about the proposed plan. Raytheon, which produces the PAC-2 version, declined to comment.
Valerie Insinna contributed to this report.
