Mr Trump informed a press convention on Tuesday: “I hear that [Mr Zelensky is] approaching Friday. Definitely it’s OK with me if he’d prefer to. And he wish to signal it along with me. And I perceive that’s an enormous deal, very large deal.”
“It might be a trillion-dollar deal; it might be something,” he added. “It’s uncommon earth. We’re spending a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} on Ukraine and Russia preventing.
“This man went into the state of affairs and is spending cash like no person has ever seen. The opposite factor we don’t like is that Europe has spent $100 billion (£79bn) and we now have spent $350 billion.
“Europe will get their a reimbursement as a result of they spent it within the type of a mortgage. And we simply gave them $300 billion, $350 billion, no person actually is aware of. We wanna be safe and we wanna get our a reimbursement. The American taxpayer is gonna get their a reimbursement plus.”
The problem of financing has already led to a conflict between Mr Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, with Mr Zelensky additionally disputing his claims.
This is what we are able to discern.
US President Donald Trump is about to fulfill his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday
AFP by way of Getty Photos
How a lot has the US, UK and Europe contributed to Ukraine’s battle effort?
Mr Trump has repeated that the US has given $300bn to $350bn to Ukraine because the battle with Russia started in February 2022.
The Commonplace has approached the US State Division for a response relating to the origin of the $350bn determine. Nevertheless, we didn’t obtain a reply on the time of writing.
Relations between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump have deteriorated
AP
Mr Trump has additionally made doubtful claims concerning the spending on the battle effort made by European allies — which pertains to the EU and particular person nations making contributions.
He has repeatedly claimed that Europe has paid round $100bn to the trigger, though the BBC has claimed that it has not discovered any proof of the place this got here from.
As a substitute, the BBC’s evaluation of the Kiel Institute figures discovered that Europe has paid round $138bn.
The French president responded: “No, the truth is. To be frank, we paid. We paid 60 per cent of the whole effort.”
The Kiel Institute discovered that almost all contributions have been comprised of loans, grants and ensures. The US has given a better proportion of its contribution to Ukraine by way of a grant. The European funding is generally from loans, however these are on beneficial phrases.
The UK’s contribution is separate from Europe’s, with a complete dedication of £12.8bn to Ukraine. This contains £7.8 billion in army help and £5 billion in non-military help, in response to Authorities knowledge.
Britain has supplied this help via grants, ensures and loans.
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