The announcement came as Trump sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the margins of NATO's summit in Turkey.
"One of the things we're going to talk about is that we're going to give you a license to make Patriots, that's pretty cool", Trump told Zelensky, adding: "This way you won't be able to complain that we're not giving you enough. I said, 'Make them yourselves'".
Lockheed Martin, the missile's manufacturer, hasn't yet been notified, Trump said, though he predicted the company — and Ukraine — would welcome the decision. Few nations have the industrial capability to build interceptor missiles, he said, but Ukraine is one of them. Kyiv has pushed for the arrangement for months.
Trump paired the announcement with unusually warm remarks about Ukraine's military performance, describing recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries and factories as an "escalation" that could nonetheless hasten an end to the war. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, invited by Trump to weigh in, made the same case: Russia is struggling increasingly to defend its own airspace, he said, a shift that "we hope [...] will create space for negotiations to end the war".
The president struck an optimistic note more broadly on the prospects for peace, insisting Vladimir Putin is under mounting pressure to wrap up the conflict even without additional U.S. action. "I don't think he likes what's happening", Trump said. "There's a lot of pressure on President Putin to do this. I think everyone is under pressure to do this".
Putin's negotiating terms, he added, have been "getting a little better, in the direction of things you would want" — a remark aimed directly at Zelensky.
Trump said he would call Putin after wrapping up his meeting with the Ukrainian leader. He also revisited an idea Putin has floated in prior conversations: a Zelensky-Putin meeting in Moscow, which Trump said isn't realistic. Asked whether he'd make the trip, Zelensky deflected with a joke, saying the Russian capital is currently swarming with Ukrainian drones and "it isn't safe".
(jh)
Source: PAP