{"id":18661,"date":"2025-07-18T21:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T21:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=18661"},"modified":"2025-07-18T21:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T21:00:11","slug":"were-not-buying-it-trump-ties-ukraine-aid-to-america-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=18661","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re not buying it\u2019: Trump ties Ukraine aid to America First"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;Trump on Monday went further than he ever has in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia, greenlighting a European&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/07\/14\/trump-sends-weapons-ukraine-00451109\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">purchase of Patriot missile defense systems and other weapons for Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even as Trump wants to up the pressure on Moscow, bucking the isolationist wing of the MAGA movement, he is insisting that this latest move aligns with his \u201cAmerica First\u201d strategy and fits into a decades-long view that America has been ripped off by allies and that Europe, in particular, has gotten a free ride on defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trump, during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday, exaggerated how much money the U.S. has already spent on aid to Ukraine and emphasized that Europeans would finally pay their fair share.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/07\/14\/trumps-ukraine-aid-fits-america-first-00452809\">https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/07\/14\/trumps-ukraine-aid-fits-america-first-00452809<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Trump on Monday went further than he ever has in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia, greenlighting a European purchase of Patriot missile defense systems and other weapons for Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Even as Trump wants to up the pressure on Moscow, bucking the isolationist wing of the MAGA movement, he is insisting that this latest move aligns with his \u201cAmerica First\u201d strategy and fits into a decades-long view that America has been ripped off by allies and that Europe, in particular, has gotten a free ride on defense.<\/p>\n<p>Trump, during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday, exaggerated how much money the U.S. has already spent on aid to Ukraine and emphasized that Europeans would finally pay their fair share.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/07\/14\/trumps-ukraine-aid-fits-america-first-00452809<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[552,221,924,728,272,355,314,1545,315,170,311,158,1055],"class_list":["post-18661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-conflict","tag-donald-trump","tag-eastern-europe","tag-europe","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-international-relations","tag-invasion","tag-russia","tag-trump","tag-ukraine","tag-war","tag-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18662,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661\/revisions\/18662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}