The news follows a tense exchange between Trump and the Ukrainian president at the Oval Office last week.
The United States has paused aid to Ukraine, a White House official told The Epoch Times on Monday.
“The President has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well. We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution,” a White House official said.
Since fighting erupted between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. has sent at least $175 billion in aid, including cash and military equipment, to support Ukrainian defense efforts.
The aid pause comes days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump clashed in the Oval Office, which resulted in a U.S.–Ukraine economic deal falling apart.
“I just think [Zelenskyy] should be more appreciative, because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin,” Trump said at the White House on Monday. “We’ve given them much more than Europe, and Europe should have given more than us.”
When asked if aid would be cut, Trump demurred, saying that if he provided a response, he “could go back into the Oval Office and find out that the answer is obsolete.”
Hours later, the White House confirmed that it is pausing and reviewing U.S. aid to Ukraine.
In a March 3 interview with Sean Hannity, Vice President JD Vance said that Trump knows that “the very best security guarantee” for Ukraine against any possible future Russian invasion “is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine.”
“The only realistic pathway to bring this thing to a settlement is President Trump’s pathway,” Vance said. “We encourage both President Zelenskyy and President Putin to follow that path.”
Zelenskyy met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emanuel Macron over the weekend to forge a plan toward a cease-fire, with Starmer and Macron promising to provide security to enforce any potential agreements.
“The baseline scenario is to hold positions and create conditions for proper diplomacy, for the soonest possible end to this war with a decent peace. We need peace—real, fair peace—not endless war,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday in a national address. “And we need security guarantees.”
He blamed Russia for the ongoing conflict.
“Because there are still no defined security guarantees, it is Russia that is keeping this war going,” Zelenskyy said.
After the hastily arranged summit March 2, he told reporters that the end of the war is still “very, very far away.”
Trump dismissed such rhetoric as dangerous.
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be peace as long as he has America’s backing … probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”
