Trump on Patriot production licence for Ukraine: "I don’t think that’s ever going to happen"
US President Donald Trump said that the United States has not yet agreed to grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot systems. He believes Washington should be "very careful" on the matter.
He made the remarks during a Cabinet meeting, according to Censor.NET.
Trump stressed that Washington must be extremely cautious about sharing the technology used to manufacture such weapons with other countries, as it could ultimately be used against the United States itself.
"We have the best weapons in the world. In the case of President Zelenskyy, he'd like to have some Patriots, he'd like to have some Tomahawks... We have to be very careful about letting somebody build them," the White House chief said.
He added that Washington had not agreed to grant the licence and suggested that it might never do so.
"At this point, we have not agreed to that. We are discussing it. But sharing technology at that level is a very serious decision. And I do not think that is ever going to happen. You know, there are people you give this kind of technology to, and one day they may turn it against you. That is possible. Look at the history of warfare. It has happened many times over the years, right? So we have to be very careful. We guard these technologies very closely. We have the strongest military in the world," the US president said.
- Earlier, US President Donald Trump said that no decision had yet been made on granting Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot interceptor missiles, casting doubt on one of Kyiv’s key defence projects.
Background
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked US President Donald Trump to provide Ukraine with an emergency "winter package" of Patriot air defence interceptor missiles to help prevent Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Poland proposed that the United States establish a trilateral project with Ukraine to manufacture missiles for Patriot air defence systems. The production facilities would be located in Poland.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine expected to acquire the technical capability to produce missiles for US-made Patriot air defence systems independently by the end of 2026.
