Buy American: How Europe must stock up on weapons for Ukraine

Courtney McBride, Alberto Nardelli, Bloomberg News on May 24, 2025

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European leaders are racing to figure out how to keep Ukraine supplied with weapons as U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be walking away from the war. One option: buy American.

Europe has neither the stocks of arms nor the capacity to make them in large enough volume as it becomes clear that the U.S. won’t be delivering any more. The White House has also refused Europe’s appeals to keep up the push to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to an immediate ceasefire by stepping up sanctions.

Instead, the Kremlin seems to be stalling on peace talks promised to Trump as it prepares for a summer offensive, according to people familiar with the matter. A proposal that’s gaining more credence is to purchase more American systems — and then send those weapons on to Ukraine, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

The idea is that if Trump refuses to send U.S. weapons to Ukraine, Europe will.

That would help Ukraine deter Russia’s advance and might put fresh pressure on Putin to get serious about a ceasefire. And if the Europeans can persuade Trump to keep up supplying intelligence to Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may be able to hang on.

At the same time, the European Union is considering cutting more than 20 banks from SWIFT, the international payments system, as well as lowering a price cap on Russian oil and banning the Nord Stream gas pipelines as part of a new sanctions package to pressure Russia.

“It’s not entirely clear to me how bad it would be if the United States walks away while keeping open the possibility of allowing Europe or Ukraine to buy U.S. weapons and allows U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine to continue,” said Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It’s not an ideal outcome. It’s certainly suboptimal, but it’s not the total worst case that a lot of us have been worried about.”

The pivot would essentially force Trump to pick between two competing desires: his desire to avoid antagonizing Putin against his wish to bring in more cash for the U.S. via the sale of big-ticket defense items.

Trump spoke separately earlier this week with Putin and European leaders, saying later that he would “back away” if sufficient progress was not made in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. “This is a European situation,” the president said at the White House. “It should have remained a European situation.”

The people said they expect the U.S. to continue sharing intelligence with Ukraine to aid in targeting. A brief cutoff of that cooperation created operational challenges for Kyiv, but also sparked wider fears among U.S. allies that they could face similar treatment in the future.

Time is running out. Experts say arms transfers to Ukraine approved and funded by former President Joe Biden could run out this summer, and that Europe will struggle to produce enough weapons to fill the void. Putin will try to take advantage of this dynamic, experts said.

Given the defensive nature of the current fight and the vital role of domestically produced drones, “it’s not going to be catastrophic” if there is not another supplemental funding package from Washington, said Samuel Charap, distinguished chair in Russia and Eurasia policy at RAND.

Arming Ukraine with U.S.-made weapons, either purchased or donated, is the only way to convince Putin to end the war, said Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A natural-resources deal signed with Ukraine gives the president space to go to Congress to seek additional funding for Ukraine and to argue that it is a contribution to the joint investment fund rather than a burden on U.S. taxpayers, he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that the U.S. is urging NATO allies to send more Patriot batteries to Ukraine, but that countries want to use the systems to protect their own territory. Zelenskyy told reporters in April that his government wants to buy at least 10 Patriot batteries from the U.S., and that he is waiting for a response from Washington.

Trump “understands that if he were to throw under Ukraine under the bus and Russia were to secure Ukraine’s capitulation, that’s a resounding political defeat for Donald Trump,” Kupchan said. “Ukraine becomes Trump’s Afghanistan, if not worse.”

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(With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak and Ewa Krukowska.)