The government shutdown has caused delays in arms transfers to NATO allies and Ukraine. Due to furloughed State Department officials, the process of ensuring weapons sales are completed has been affected.
Axios reported that shipments of AMRAAM and HIMARS missiles to Denmark, Croatia, and Poland have been postponed, impacting the transfer of these arms to Ukraine.
A senior State Department official expressed concern, stating, “This is actually really harming both our allies and partners and US industry to actually deliver a lot of these critical capabilities overseas.”
The White House attributed the slowdown to Democrats, with a State Department spokesperson mentioning, “Democrats are holding up critical weapons sales, including to our NATO allies, which harms the U.S. industrial base and puts our and our partners’ security at risk.”
According to the Ukrainian publication Kyiv Post, the government shutdown has frozen over $5 billion in US weapons exports intended for NATO allies and Ukraine.
President Donald Trump, upon taking office, shifted the policy of shipping weapons to Ukraine that was previously implemented by Joe Biden. While direct weapon transfers to Ukraine have ceased under Trump’s administration, intelligence support for long-range strikes inside Russia and increased sanctions on Moscow have continued.
Despite Trump’s campaign promise to end the war, progress towards achieving this goal has been stagnant, as evidenced by the recent cancellation of a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hungary.
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