Europe must prepare for US scaling down support for Ukraine, Pistorius says
"Yes, that's right. That would be so, and we have to deal with that," Pistorius told journalists in response to a question about the U.S. potentially scaling down its support. He noted that the discussions focus on a reduction in U.S. backing rather than a full halt.
The comments come after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Washington would reduce the assistance allocated to Ukraine in the next year's federal budget.
"We now have to look at how much support drops and whether Europeans can compensate for it," Pistorius added.
While the U.S. has been Ukraine's leading military backer under former President Joe Biden, the Trump administration has yet to approve any aid packages and has become increasingly disengaged from peace talks.
Pistorius's comments come amid increasing uncertainty in transatlantic relations. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker confirmed on May 16 that the United States plans to begin discussions with European allies later this year about reducing its military presence on the continent.
Speaking at a security conference in Estonia, Whitaker said the talks would begin after the NATO summit in The Hague in June.
"Nothing has been determined," Whitaker said, according to Reuters. "But as soon as we do, we are going to have these conversations in the structure of NATO."
Whitaker emphasized that any drawdown would be closely coordinated to avoid creating security gaps. Still, he reiterated U.S. President Donald Trump's position that long-standing U.S. efforts to reduce its European military footprint must now be implemented.
"This is going to be orderly, but we are not going to have any more patience for foot-dragging in this situation," he said.
In February, Hegseth reportedly told NATO allies that "stark strategic realities" prevent the United States from being primarily focused on Europe's security. Leaks reported by the Atlantic in March revealed that both Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance privately criticized European defense spending, with Hegseth allegedly expressing his "loathing of European free-loading."
Trump called on NATO member states to increase defense spending up to 5% of GDP. Ahead of the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague on June 24–25, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that member states will have agreed to a new goal of increasing defense spending.
"We are headed for a summit in six weeks in which virtually every member of NATO will be at or above 2%, but more importantly, many of them will be over 4%, and all will have agreed on a goal of reaching 5% over the next decade," Rubio told Fox News on May 15.
Such a move would mark a historic shift, with NATO partners collectively accounting for more than half of the alliance's military capacity, according to Rubio.
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, NATO members have significantly increased their defense spending, with countries like Poland and the Baltic nations aiming to reach the 5% target in the coming years.
Read also: Ukraine bracing for 'painful' reduction in US military aid after Hegseth announces cuts
We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
17 minutes ago
- Associated Press
China imposes anti-dumping duties on European brandy as trade tensions rise
BEIJING (AP) — China on Friday imposed anti-dumping duties on European brandy, most notably cognac produced in France, as trade tensions between Beijing and United States allies continue to rise. The tariffs, effective on Saturday, will range from 27.7% to 34.9%, China's Commerce Ministry said. They are to be in place for five years and will not be applied retroactively. The announcement came during a European visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi aimed at ironing out trade differences. Wang was set to visit Paris after stops in Brussels and Berlin. The anti-dumping duties are the result of a probe China launched last year into European cognac, after the European Union undertook a probe into Chinese electric vehicles subsidies. 'The investigative authority finally ruled that the dumping of related imported brandy from the EU has existed,' read a statement by China's Commerce Ministry. 'The domestic brandy industry faces a material threat of damage, and there is a causal relationship between the dumping and the substantial damage threat.' Besides cognac, China has also launched investigations into European pork and dairy products. The brandy probe was the first and targeted mainly French makers of cognac and similar spirits such as Armagnac. China initially announced provisional tariffs of 30.6% to 39% on French cognac producer Remy Martin and other European brandies after a majority of E.U. countries approved duties on electric vehicles made in China. Wang was set to meet his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, later Friday in Paris. His European tour comes ahead of a China-EU summit to be focused on trade later this month in Beijing.
Atlantic
36 minutes ago
- Atlantic
The Great Realignment
The American president wrote, 'Vladimir, STOP!' on his Truth Social account in April, but the Russian president did not halt his offensive in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president called for an unconditional cease-fire in May, but the Russians did not agree to stop attacking Ukrainian civilians from the air. Donald Trump repeatedly promised, during his campaign, that he would end the war 'in one day,' but the war is not over. Instead, the Russian invasion of Ukraine does not merely continue. It accelerates. Most evenings, Russian troops hit Ukrainian apartment buildings, factories, infrastructure, and people, using ever more drones and missiles. On the ground, Ukraine's top commander has said that the Russians are preparing a new summer offensive, with 695,000 troops spread across the front line. Russian soldiers also continue to be wounded or killed at extraordinary rates, with between 35,000 and 45,000 casualties every month, while billions of dollars' worth of Russian equipment are destroyed every week by Ukrainian drones. The Russian economy suffers from high inflation and is heading for a recession. But Vladimir Putin is not looking for a cease-fire, and he does not want to negotiate. Why? Because he believes that he can win. Thanks to the actions of the U.S. government, he still thinks that he can conquer all of Ukraine. Putin sees what everyone else sees: Slowly, the U.S. is switching sides. True, Trump occasionally berates Putin, or makes sympathetic noises toward Ukrainians, as he did last week when he seemed to express interest in a Ukrainian journalist who said that her husband was in the military. Trump also appeared to enjoy being flattered at the NATO summit, where European leaders made a decision, hailed as historic, to further raise defense spending. But thanks to quieter decisions by members of his own administration, people whom he has appointed, the American realignment with Russia and against Ukraine and Europe is gathering pace—not merely in rhetoric but in reality. Just this week, in the middle of the worst aerial-bombing campaign since the war began, the Trump administration confirmed that a large shipment of weapons, which had already been funded by the Biden administration, will not be sent to Ukraine. The weapons, some of which are already in Poland, include artillery shells, missiles, rockets, and, most important, interceptors for Patriot air-defense systems, the ammunition that Ukrainians need to protect civilians from missile attacks. Trump had suggested that he would supply Ukraine with more Patriot ammunition, which is an American product. 'We're going to see if we can make some available,' he said after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week. But what he says and what his administration actually does are very different. Pentagon spokespeople have explained that this abrupt change was made because American stockpiles are insufficient, an excuse disputed both by former Biden-administration officials and by independent policy analysts. But whether true or false, this reasoning doesn't matter to the Russians, who have already interpreted this change as a clear signal that American support for Ukraine is ending: 'The fewer the number of weapons that are delivered to Ukraine, the closer the end of the special military operation,' the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. To be clear, by 'the end of the special military operation,' he means the defeat of Ukraine. At the same time, and with much less publicity, the U.S. is essentially lifting sanctions on Russia. No such formal announcement has been made. But the maintenance of sanctions requires constant shifts and adjustments, as Russian companies and other entities change suppliers and tactics in order to acquire sanctioned products. During the Biden administration, I spoke several times with officials who followed these changes closely, and who repeatedly issued new sanctions in order to counter them. As The New York Times has reported, the Trump administration has stopped following these shifts and stopped imposing new sanctions altogether. This, the Times writes, allows 'new dummy companies to funnel funds and critical components to Russia, including computer chips and military equipment.' In addition to taking Russia's side in the kinetic war and the economic war, the U.S. is realigning its position in the narrative war, too. During the Biden administration, the State Department's Global Engagement Center regularly identified Russian disinformation operations around the world—exposing misleading websites or campaigns secretly run or directed by Russian operatives in Latin America and Africa, as well as in Europe. Trump appointees have not only dissolved the center; they also baselessly and bizarrely accused it of somehow harming American conservatives, even of having ' actively silenced and censored the voices of Americans,' although the GEC had no operations inside the U.S. At the same time, cuts to USAID and other programs have abruptly reduced funding for some independent media and Russian-opposition media. The planned cuts to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, if not stopped by the courts, will destroy one of the few outside sources of information that reaches Russians with real news about the war. Should all of these changes become permanent, the U.S. will no longer have any tools available to communicate with the Russian public or counter Russian propaganda, either inside Russia or around the world. Listen: Trump's betrayal of Ukraine Inside the United States, Russian propaganda is most loudly and effectively promoted by appointees of the U.S. president. Steve Witkoff, the real-estate developer who became Trump's main negotiator with Russia despite having no knowledge of Russian history or politics, regularly echoes false Russian talking points and propaganda. He has repeated Putin's view, which he may have heard from the Russian president himself, that 'Ukraine is just a false country, that they just patched together in this sort of mosaic, these regions.' Witkoff has also seemed to agree with Putin that Ukrainian territories that voted for independence from Moscow in 1991 are somehow 'Russian.' By accepting disputed claims as fact, Witkoff is also helping Putin continue his war. In order to keep Russians onboard, to create divisions among Ukraine's allies, and maybe even to build doubts inside Ukraine itself, Putin needs to portray the Ukrainian cause as hopeless and to describe the Ukrainian 'demands' as unreasonable. He has to hide the most basic facts about this war: that he began it, that he has killed hundreds of thousands of people in pursuit of it, and that his goal, again, is to destroy or decapitate all of Ukraine. Witkoff helps make these falsehoods easier to sustain, in Russia, in the U.S., and in Europe. Add all of these things together, and they are something more than just a pattern. They are a set of incentives that help persuade Putin to keep fighting. Sanctions are disappearing, weapons are diminishing, counterpropaganda is harder to hear. All of that will encourage Putin to go further—not just to try to defeat Ukraine but to divide Europe, mortally damage NATO, and reduce the power and influence of the United States around the world. Europe, Canada, and most of the rest of the democratic world will continue to back Ukraine. As I have written before, Ukrainians will continue to innovate, to build new kinds of automated weapons, new drones, new software. They will continue to fight, because the alternative is the end of their civilization, their language, and, for many of them, their lives. The Ukrainians could still win. A different set of American policies could help them win faster. The U.S. could still expand sanctions on Russia, provide ammunition, and help the Ukrainians win the narrative war. The administration could stop the fighting, the missile attacks, and the lethal drone swarms; it could stop the pointless deaths that Trump has repeatedly said he opposes. By choosing to back Russia, the U.S. will ensure that the war continues. Only by backing Ukraine is there hope for peace.
Forbes
42 minutes ago
- Forbes
Almost 90% Of Americans Are Concerned About Inflation
An overwhelming majority of Americans are worried about inflation as concerns about tariffs stalled progress in bringing price increases down to a more palatable level – and the starkest impact of tariffs has likely yet to show up meaningfully in data. Tariffs have not yet meaningfully affected broader inflation data, but the levies will soon cause ... More inflation to shoot back up to the highest level since 2023, according to Goldman Sachs economists. AFP via Getty Images Some 87% of Americans are somewhat or very concerned about rising inflation, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey of 4,306 adults conducted in late April, shortly after Trump paused his most aggressive 'Liberation Day' country-by-country tariffs. Just 32% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of inflation, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, compared to 56% who disapprove. Respondents were divided heavily along party lines, as just 4% of Democrats approve of Trump on inflation compared to 25% of independents and 71% of Republicans. Other polling also indicates sustained concerns about inflation. An annual April survey from Gallup revealed inflation was Americans' top financial concern for the fourth year in a row – and the University of Michigan's inflation expectation survey peaked at a 44-year high this spring. Inflation data was largely benign during 2025's first half despite the angst propelled by economist warnings of significantly higher prices as import taxes increased more than 700%. The most commonly cited measure of inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer price index, cooled to a four-year low of 2.3% by April, rising slightly to 2.4% in May, the last month for which data is available. The Federal Reserve's pet measure of inflation, the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, dipped from 2.9% in December to 2.7% in May, though it still remains above the Fed's long-held 2% goal. What To Watch For Trump has misleadingly and repeatedly celebrated this steady decline in annual price increases as proof of 'NO INFLATION,' but experts believe the impact of tariffs will soon materialize. Goldman Sachs economists predict core PCE inflation will shoot up more than half a percentage point to 3.4% by December, the highest rate since 2023. Big Number 4.25% to 4.5%. That's where the Fed-determined interest rates have stood all of 2025, higher than they were from 2008 to 2022, bookending the Great Recession and the post COVID-19 inflation surge. The central bank's refusal to bend to Trump's demands to take the growth-friendly move of dramatically lowering rates, instead urging caution on the impact of tariffs on inflation, has made the Fed and its top official Jerome Powell primary enemies of Trump during his second term.
