The Trump administration has stopped financing new weapons sales to Ukraine and is considering freezing weapons shipments from U.S. stockpiles, moves that threaten Kyiv’s ability to fight at a critical time in its battle against Russian forces, current and former U.S. officials said.
The shutdown of financing new weapons sales began before Friday’s acrimonious meeting.... But the meeting to consider suspending ongoing weapons shipments to Ukraine drawn from U.S. military inventories emerged after the Friday blowup at the White House.
The United States is drawing up a plan to potentially give Russia sanctions relief as Donald Trump seeks to restore ties with Moscow and stop the war in Ukraine, a US official and another person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The White House has asked the state and treasury departments to draft a list of sanctions that could be eased for US officials to discuss with Russian representatives in the coming days.... The White House asked state and treasury officials to come up with a possible sanctions relief plan before Trump last week extended a state of emergency over the situation in Ukraine, the US sources said.
So: No more arms shipments to Ukraine, and sanctions relief for Russia, something Trump had in mind well before his staged blowup with Zelensky. Go ahead and solve for what this means. The algebra isn't hard.
We will destroy our own government to find a million dollars in fraud, but we'll throw away trillions we've spent over decades in foreign policy/military spending against our worst enemy. Dear. fucking. god.
If Trump’s not a Russian asset he sure is doing a good job of cosplaying exactly what a Russian asset would do
I believe "Agent Krasnov" is the name you're looking for
Yes. FFS, if a president who didn't at all care about Ukraine nonetheless cared about getting the best deal for this country, they'd ramp UP the military aid to Ukraine in advance of negotiations with Russia.
Obviously, Trump is some combination of dumbass and aspiring autocrat, so it's hard to disentangle how much of this is him getting rolled by Russia and how much is him trying to be like Russia, but it is once again plain that Trump can't negotiate for shit.
Less bloodshed and national honor is on the line with the Canada tariffs, of course, but that's another example: the Admin is saying that there isn't enough time to stop (their own deadline?) on the tariffs tomorrow, but conspicuously absent is any set of demands--like, what are we doing this for? What is it that Trump wants out of Canada?
What do you mean "less national honor" with the Canada tariffs? Trump is proposing to stab the US's closest ally in the back in flagrant breach of a treaty he negotiated. I don't see how it can get much more dishonorable than that.
Nobody in Canada will be murdered or raped by, or have their homes or schools or hospitals bombed by, Russian invaders as a result of the TrumpTariffs. But a lot of Ukrainians are going to die because of him.
So, yeah, I think there's a difference in the impact on our national honor. But ymmv.
The national honor is shot to shit in either case, just one would have a lot bloodier consequences on top of flushing honor down the toilet.
Any world leader that trusts the US on anything during the next 50 years is a moron that shouldn't be making any decisions.
Actually, the Obama administration pretty much destroyed the national honor by failing to carry through on the US's treaty obligations under the Convention Against Torture. Ever since Obama said "we want to look forward, not back", it's been clear to all observers that the US will only honor its treaty obligations when it is expedient.
No, we all knew well before hand that the U.S was a vipers nest of treasonous untrustworthy liars. For quite a long time your force and propaganda is all you've had. This is why Trump was elected- he DOES represent you. You elected him not realising how incompetent he is, but his being a thuggish bully? That's the U.S. since about 1977, not satisfied that post WW2 much was organised in your favour.
"Lethal consequences" and "national honor" are not the same thing.
+1
Wow. Didn't expect to see this much hairsplitting. I don't really care to argue the relative levels of impact to as abstract a concept as "honor" is, but I'd proffer that perhaps imposing tariffs is less dishonorable than pushing a weak ally into the maw of a conquering dictator.
Both bad, I'll agree! But there are distinctions and gradations.
It doesn't make any difference to issues of American dishonor, but fortunately the European countries are ready, willing, and able to fill the gap Trump has created. Ukrainians will continue to die, but I don't think that there will be any more deaths due to Trump's treason.
Trump is still obsessed that Zelensky didn’t publicly announce an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden after the “perfect phone call”. Zelensky also refused to look for the Hillary emails supposedly stashed on a Ukrainian server. Then to top it off, Donald got impeached over it. Anyone who voted for Trump thinking he was not going to cut off add to Ukraine ASAP is a fool.
+1
He wanted to unilaterally surrender to the Taliban at Camp David.
He’s both a Russian stooge and a pathetic surrender monkey.
Looks like Vlad called in the loans. Tariffs on Canada and Mexico that are flatly in violation of the USMCA which Trump negotiated and signed and was then ratified by the US Senate. Turning coats against an ally whose soverignty America pledged to protect. Schmoozing Xi while giving the icy treatment to Taiwan's elected leaders.
Will ANY nation EVER trust the United States again?
NO! And for good reason.
I don't trust this country.
This is what people voted for. Every damn thing that’s happening. That tipping point? The point of no return? We passed it.
It’s sad. Tragic. Infuriating. But it’s a done deal. There’s no recourse or recovery possible.
This is what zombie voters voted for.
There's already talk of the US pulling out of NATO. Put all those pieces together.
We've been actively working AGAINST NATO. I wouldn't be surprised if they're getting close to asking us to leave.
And they'd be well within their right.
They don't have to ask us to leave. They're already working around us. Did you notice that Trudeau attended the European/Ukraine summit? It's NATO, just without the US.
Both of these require Congressional approval.
Any bets whether they'll get that? Or be held to the letter of the law?
Congress is irrelevant.
Congress is only irrelevant because the GOP decided to make it irrelevant. Congress could impeach his ass at any time if the GOP so chose.
Trump will be pulling the nukes out of Europe before the end of the month. Actually our nuke sharing is done under NATO so probably we'll pull out of NATO pretty soon and then the nukes will leave.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-nato-withdrawal-us-marco-rubio-2025-3?op=1
So the man letting Trump sit in the oval office wants to leave NATO too. Not surprising in the least.
Kompromat. There's no other explanation.
yes there is: Trump is a dumbass who admires dictators in general and Putin in particular. He's not acting like he's under duress, because he's not.
He's a useful idiot, from Russia's perspective, and a very, very dangerous one, from ours, and a catastrophe, from Ukraine's.
A useful idiot is exactly what he is. He has no idea he's being manipulated. Putin must be ecstatic. All this cost him is flattering a stupid narcasist.
+1 what others said. What possible kompromat could exist that is both (1) embarrassing for Trump and also (2) a dealbreaker for his cult to finally dump him as their leader? I can think of only “video of him fucking his kids” and even that I’m not sure meets (2) because his cult will rationalize it away. (“That could be anybody made to look like Ivanka with AI!”)
You can’t blackmail the shameless or the insane, and Trump and his cult exhibit lots of both qualities.
1) Money. Lots of it. 2) Providing intelligence and support for Tump's political benefit. Lots of it. 3) Attacking and weakening US democracy - Democrats, institutions - for Tump's benefit. 4) Trump truly identifies with Putin and sees him as not just an ally in autocracy, but as someone he both idolizes and identifies with personally. Two peas in a pod. 5) ??? 6) Quid pro quo. No kompromat needed.
Tump doesn't need to be blackmailed. He's been on Team Evil from the get-go. This is just business. Plus some very public demonstrations of cruelty and revenge thrown in for good measure. There's nothing accidental about any of this.
Trump probably thinks of himself as Putins equal. Which is hillarious.
It's hilarious in at least two different ways:
1) Trump is not as formidable an individual as Putin. I'm not going to pump up Putin, but Trump ain't in his league.
2) Trump is the leader of a far, far more powerful nation than Putin's Russia will ever be. Russia is a third-rate Brazil-class power (but lacking Brazil's capacity for growth), who is rapidly devolving into a Chinese client state.
What Austin said. It's hard to imagine what sort of kompromat the Russians could have on Trump that would be worse than what is already publicly known about him: that he is a known rapist, fraud, and convicted felon. One tidbit in the Mueller Report was that the rumored "pee tape" was probably mythical - but even if it did exist, what possible difference would it make?
The far likelier explanation is that Trump just plainly admires Vladimir Putin.
Correct. The "pee tape", even if real, would have no impact because its purported existence has been out there (and extensively talked about by late night comedians) for years, obliterating its power to embarrass Trump any further.
Russia, our only friend. Welcome comrade.
This country has reached the bitter end!
Now, now, North Korea likes us too.
Well, if this happens, Ukraine is toast. Goddamn, these people.
I wonder if the MSM will go balls-to-the-wall attacking Trump for the next 3 years over his traitorous abandonment of Ukraine and NATO with the same firey gusto that they tore into Biden over the Afghanistan withdrawal. Which was, it's worth pointing out again, a Trump idea.
There's quite a lot of conservative media that thinks this is a fine idea, they think the US shoulders too much of the cost of protecting the world at the taxpayer expense. Which is why we will pull out of NATO and stop being "the world's policeman". America first, baby.
That's going to make American companies the depend upon shipping scream.
Or move overseas.
The "MSM" is a critical component of our falangist Republican and authoritarian 'conservative' regime. It was captured through rather brilliant asymmetrical media warfare years ago and has been serving its willfully unrecognized masters ever since. It will continue to aid and abet the axis of evil with its meaningless, shallow, "we're very serious journalists" stenography and in-depth investigations of how Americans feel about the price of eggs.
To not report the truth in the face of the lies and dishonesty from Trump and the GOP. is to condone it. To call a spade a spade a isn't being biased, it's being honest.
People need to be reminded this is now the REPUBLICAN's policy, not just Trump's.
Make them all own this and what's to come next.
+10
Well, it is clear that the MSM is afraid or Trump, and they are not going to remind us (except for the non-profit Philadelphia Inquirer).
They (the MSM) also pretty much ignore what Democrats are saying. But even so, I am wondering why the Democrats aren't making a lot more noise about this. It's true they have no power to stop it, but that is no reason not to keep on taking potshots on Republicans. Especially given how abundant the targets are.
Sure, the only remedy is to wait for the Republicans to self-destruct. But Democrats can help to speed that process, and help to make sure people know who to blame when it happens.
Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations committee. For some reason I could not find DC numbers for Daines and Paul.
Otherwise, time to swap their phones.
James Risch 202-224-2752
Pete Ricketts 202 224-4224
Dave McCormack 202-224-6324
Steve Daines
Bill Hagerty 202-224-4944
Mike Lee 202-224-5444
Rand Paul
Ted Cruz 202-224-5922
Rick Scott 202-224-5274
John Curtis 202-224-5251
John Cornyn 202-224-2934
John Barasso 866-235-9553
John Thune 202-224-2321
The Senate office numbers are 202-224-2651 for Steve Daines and 202-224-4343 for Rand Paul.
https://www.congress.gov/members?q=%7B%22congress%22%3A119%7D
Unclear to me if sanctions relief is if there's an agreement with Russia and Ukraine, an agreement just with Russia (in exchange for what?), or just being nice.
How long before we start bombing Ukraine? Probably before the end of the summer and Lindsey Graham will be behind it 100%.
And all those Republicans trying to blame Zelenskyy for the meeting blowing up???
And for all Polish-Americans:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/03/polish-ex-president-lech-walesa-expresses-horror-and-distaste-at-donald-trump-volodymyr-zelenskyy-jd-vance-spat
Tomorrow is paczki day in the US (at least Chicago area, where today was Casimir Pulaski day)
Stopping arms shipments is bad but what's the situation regarding the U.S. providing military intelligence to Ukraine? That helped Ukraine deploy troops efficiently, and target Russian military assets. Is that going to be halted? I think so, and soon.
Presumably related:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/us/politics/hegseth-cyber-russia-trump-putin.html
And there's talk that Musk is going to shut off their SkyLink service.
Starlink.
oops...I was thinking Skynet
😉
That comes later. 😉
It's high time Trump was impeached again.
Impeachment is the least he deserves. He makes the Rosenberg's crimes look like jaywalking in comparison.
Both Trump and his lickspittle v.p. should be impeached. After sweeping both the house and the Senate. I hope we last that long.
Putin could hardly have dreamed that Trump would weaken the US so much, so rapidly, as well as doing his best to gift him Ukraine. Putin desperately needs sanctions relief, if any is to be given, there must be strong protections against a renewed invasion, otherwise Russia will simply re=arm and restart its war of conquest. Congress is the only slim hope to keep the terrible negotiator in the White House from giving away the store. That would require some Republicans to grow a spine.
No, what Tump is doing is intentional. It is not an accident or unforeseen outcome. Rescuing Putin is the objective. It's kind of obvious. This is the prelude to forming explicit alliances with Russia, China, North Korea, Hungary, the European far right, and probably India. The ultimate goal is weakening and fracturing Europe to the point of geopolitical weakness. Not destroyed, but controlled.
That's what's going on.
Another possibility is that Trump looks forward to the three strongmen: himself, Putin and Xi divvying up the rest of the world and its resources among themselves. Each maintaining its sphere of influence, 1910 style. (Or maybe 1984 style?) Not allies but not exactly enemies either. That's the kind of deal-maker he thinks he is.
He misses two crucial pieces:
He's no strongman and the other two know it,
Continual eruptions of defiance by those who do not submit will spoil his party.
Also, Putin may be the Gangster-King of Russia, but Russia is a third-rate regional power. The only global powers on Earth are the US, the EU, and China. Why in god's name the US would ever want to dissolve the US-EU alliance and thereby put itself on even footing with China is beyond me, but a presumed peership with Russia is a fucking dumbass reason.
Which is no doubt part of the appeal to fucking dumbass in chief Trump.
In the space of less than a quarter of a year the myths of the international political order have been completely rewritten, and by authors of poor skill.
This was Putins plan all along. It's a frightening thing when our president is a lapdog for the Russian oligarch.
I was wrong about the Europeans. I thought they had finally seen the light that the convicted felon was an idiot who couldn't be trusted because he was prone to emotional outbursts and capriciously breaking agreements. A principled or an emotionally stable man would not have flip-flopped back and forth twice in three days.
Have you really listened to and parsed what his demands are?
- Surrender everything including your national pride and I'll think about keeping the arms flowing so that I can take credit for forcing peace down your throat.
- You really pulled a fast one on the old man before me and he gave you hundreds of billions of dollars of equipment and arms. If he didn't do that, you would have failed already. See how stupid the old man was? He was giving all that away for free! I'll make you pay me billions just so that I can stop the killings.
None of it makes fucking sense.
Because we have an extremely stupid president being used by an extremely more intelligent adversary.
According the lying main stream news media, Mango Mussolini has already halted shipment of arms to Ukraine, until Zelenskyy returns to Washington and "assumes the position" for him.
Perhaps he will send those arms to Putin, to help them bombard Ukrainian civilians.
I think he has this deranged notion that by expanding the universe of potential negative outcomes, he is creating leverage for himself. But international relations is a repeated game: act like a sociopathic asshole and your counterparties will move to reduce their dependence on you (or accept sub-optimal outcomes to demonstrate that they cannot be bullied).
I also think that Trump has been marinating in the online alt-right fever swamp. JD Vance is definitely an extremely online alt-righter.
We should not be making or expecting Zelenskyy to kiss the ring in front of cameras, that's not why any of this is happening, Ukraine has a cause we believe in, they're in the right, Russia in the wrong.
And Trump also shouldn't have brought up Biden 10 times before that, while another president is sitting with him, or act in any way that it's somehow aberrant that Ukraine hates Putin, or that there's some equivalence between Ukraine's hate for Putin and Putin's hate for them.
Bringing up Biden looks like an effort to excuse Putin, as did references to the "witch hunt", and Trump and Putin having "been through a lot together", and sure sounds like "re-litigating" the case in front of the cameras, the very thing that Vance claimed to be upset about (along with not enough kowtowing).
Not once did Trump firmly state that Ukraine is in the right, and Russia in the wrong, as a basis and foundation for negotiating peace. By not doing so, he's dramatically moved the US position more to Russia's side, when these negotiations definitely should not be starting from a clean, balanced slate, Putin and Russia are coming to the table as war criminals.
Litigate in front of cameras? Okay for Trump, not for Zelenskyy.
Blame Biden a dozen times with Zelenskyy sitting alongside instead of putting responsibility on Putin and Russia? Check.
Equivocate the hate Ukraine has for Russia with the reverse, and the lost lives on "both sides"? Check.
Signal solidarity with Putin for what Trump and he had to go through with the "witch hunt"? Check.
Outright say you don't want to talk about Odessa, which Russia had bombed just before the meeting started, a meeting they obviously knew what going to occur in front of cameras? Check.
Completely ignore war crimes and laws against aggression, because only thing that matters is getting a quick deal? Check.
+10. Trump 2.0 is an unmitigated disaster and shit show.
The centrality of publicly and crushingly humiliating Zelenskyy cannot be forgotten, which is a twofer element of TrumpCo's (i.e., global authoritarianism) plan to weaken and/or fracture all functional democracies to form a ruling global axis of evil. Yes, we are in a Bond movie, and yes, they might pull it off.
My friend tried to warn me about Tump back in 2016 that something like this was going to happen, but I could not wrap my head around it. He was right on the money. The insane clown posse (apologies to those good folks) has fully taken the reins of the future of human civilization. Republicans are falangists, full stop authoritarians. American conservatism is a neo- fascist state. We will see crackdowns, possibly sooner than later. The powers of the state will be turned against anyone who resists conformity.
Addendum: if any Democrat ever says the word "bipartisan" again, they need to be run out on a rail.
+100.
For years I poo-poo'ed the idea that Trump was a Russian asset. I've changed my mind.
It's a hard thing to contemplate never mind accept. But here we are and it couldn't be any more apparent.