Former President Donald Trump said Europe needs to start matching the United States in supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia, claiming the countries within it are about “$100 billion short.”
Maria Bartiromo asked Trump on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures whether he would stop sending money fueled by United States taxpayers to Ukraine.
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“I’d get the war settled,” Trump said, adding that “Europe is smiling all the way to the bank.”
“Europe is doing very little compared to the United States, and it affects them more, no matter how you look at it. They’re right there. We’re an ocean apart. Why are we at 150 billion, and they’re at 20?” Trump asked, noting, “Their economy is almost exactly our size.”
Trump has repeatedly touted that he would end the nearly 17-month conflict between Russia and Ukraine swiftly, in less than a day. In part one of Bartiromo’s interview last week, she asked how he planned to end the war within 24 hours.
“I would tell Zelensky: No more. You got to make a deal. I would tell Putin: If you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give them a lot. We’re going to give them more than they ever got if we have to,” Trump said on July 16.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, the U.S. has given Ukraine more than $113 billion in aid, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
While aid has poured into the nation from countries all over the world, the lion’s share of support to Ukraine has come from the U.S., as European institutions and countries have committed a combined 54.9 billion euros in aid to Ukraine.
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Trump on Sunday compared his calls for stronger European support to his move as president in 2019 to cut funding to NATO’s budget, as the former president has previously slammed NATO allies for not meeting the 2% NATO defense spending target.
“They weren’t paying, and I made them pay and took in hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said.
