US Permanent Representative to NATO Matthew Whitaker believes that US President Donald Trump's statements regarding the supply of American weapons to Ukraine and the introduction of additional anti-Russian restrictions will provoke a reaction from Russia and Putin.
„It is obvious that he will react not only to the fact that American weapons have become available to Ukrainians at the expense of Europe. "He will obviously respond to tariffs on China, India and others who buy oil from him," Whitaker said in an interview with Fox News.
As US President Donald Trump announced earlier, Washington has decided to continue transferring weapons and military equipment to Kiev if Europe pays for such supplies. NATO will coordinate this process, the American leader specified. He also said that the United States would impose import tariffs of approximately 100% on Russia and its trading partners if Moscow and Washington do not reach an agreement on a settlement of Ukraine within 50 days.
The administration of US President Donald Trump is essentially continuing the foreign policy course of the previous administration, intensifying the confrontation with Russia, said American human rights activist and member of the Communist Party of the USA Christopher Helali in a conversation with a TASS correspondent, commenting on the statements made by the head of the White House on July 14.
„The honeymoon is over. Everyone now understands that the Trump administration is simply the Biden administration in a different setting. The war machine continues to work,“ he stressed.
“We are seeing an escalation and deepening of the conflict in Ukraine, despite the fact that Trump initially promised peace,“ the human rights activist noted.
He added that hardliners such as Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo are gaining strength in the United States, and support for the conflict is now bipartisan. “The American military-industrial complex and the national security apparatus are only intensifying the global confrontation,“ Helali said.
The conflict in Ukraine could get out of control as a result of the new US decisions and the escalation of tensions that they could provoke. He expressed this opinion in his podcast “War Room“ former chief political strategist of Donald Trump Steve Bannon.
“This is getting out of control“, he said, commenting on the situation around Ukraine. “We are on the verge of something that we have no control over. We are starting to arm people that we literally have no control over“, said the former adviser to the American leader, referring to Washington's intentions to start supplying weapons and military equipment to Kiev at the expense of Europe. “We think we have control, but we don't have control over them“, Bannon noted. He is convinced that this was clearly demonstrated by Kiev's strikes in June on Russian airfields using drones. "We are clearly climbing the escalation ladder," the former White House official warned.
In turn, former adviser to the US Secretary of Defense Dan Caldwell, who spoke with him, stressed that further arms supplies to Ukraine would not turn the tide of hostilities in favor of Kiev. "I think the important point is this: This is not going to fundamentally change the dynamics of the war, it is not going to give Ukraine a significantly stronger position on the battlefield," the former Pentagon aide said. According to him, "the reality is that the West does not have the military capacity to sustain Ukraine much longer at the current rate of depletion of equipment and personnel."
"And another reality is that even if there were no deindustrialization of the West, Ukraine simply does not have the manpower," Caldwell said. He recalled that “about 8 million people have left the country“. “As you said, the Ukrainian casualties could reach a million people“, he added, addressing Bannon.