Marjorie Taylor Greene has criticized Donald Trump over his new pledge to send “billions of dollars” worth of weapons to Ukraine, accusing him of breaking a campaign promise by continuing the very aid that Republicans spent years blocking under Joe Biden.
“MAGA did not vote for more weapons to Ukraine,” the Georgia congresswoman, one of Trump’s most staunch allies in Washington, wrote on X on Tuesday, referring to the “Make America great again” moniker adopted by Trump’s base of supporters. “MAGA voted for no more US involvement in foreign wars.”
Trump’s Oval Office announcement on Monday with the Nato chief, Mark Rutte, represented a pivot from his longstanding position of wanting to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict quickly, and a U-turn on the administration’s rhetoric towards European defence more broadly.
The president said the sales would include a “full complement” of weapons, including Patriot missiles.
“We will have some within days,” Trump said. Under the plan, he said European allies would swap existing Patriots for American-made systems and foot the bill by raising defense spending to 5% of GDP.
Greene’s criticism may not make a huge impact in Washington, where she is not a particularly influential figure despite her high profile within the Maga movement. But it could indicate another crack in Trump’s political coalition, which has already taken a beating during the last week over the administration’s refusal to release files concerning Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced late financier who is considered of the most prolific pedophiles of all times.
Greene, who said she has “never voted to send a single penny to Ukraine”, argued that she remains firmly opposed to any US involvement in foreign interventions.
A March CBS/YouGov poll found that 68% of Republicans disapproved of continued military aid to Ukraine. Since 2022, many congressional Republicans have repeatedly tried to block or restrict Ukraine aid, starting with Kentucky senator Rand Paul’s delay of a $40bn package, which Greene voted against, too.
Nearly 100 House Republicans voted against Ukraine funding in April 2024, following months in which the House speaker, Mike Johnson, refused to bring the aid to a vote. In February, the House voted against an effort by Greene and the Arizona representative Paul Gosar to cut off aid to Ukraine, a sign that at least some bipartisan support for Ukraine remained.
As well as the weapons deal, Trump on Monday threatened to impose “secondary tariffs” – later clarified as secondary sanctions – on countries doing business with Russia if no peace deal is reached within 50 days.
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days,” Trump said. “Tariffs at about 100%, you’d call them secondary tariffs.”
Trump has also expressed frustrations with Vladimir Putin, saying he had expected a peace deal “two months ago” but that talks had repeatedly broken down.
“I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done, and I always hang up and say, ‘Well, that was a nice phone call.’ And then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city,” Trump said.
The US president’s change in tone is an apparent vindication of what Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, attempted to explain in their explosive Oval Office meeting in February, when Trump accused Zelenskyy of starting the war even though it was Russia that invaded. That meeting led to Zelenskyy leaving the White House without a private one-on-one with Trump, and engendered speculation that the US would abandon Ukraine to its own defense.
JD Vance, the vice-president, was in the Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy – described by many observers as an ambush – and has been at the center of Trump administration efforts to distance the US from its longtime allies in Europe. He gave an ideological lecture to European leaders at a security conference in Munich earlier this year.
In accidentally leaked messages with other senior US administration leaders about a US attack on Yemen, Vance expressed opposition to helping Europe military, and only reluctantly agreed to back the strikes: “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense, agreed: “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”
Trump took a dramatically different tone at the Nato meeting with Rutte, however, noting what he considered the strength of feeling Europe had towards helping Ukraine and repeatedly praising Rutte.
Indeed, the weapons announcement has been under discussion for months, with European officials working to sustain US arms shipments under a president who had –initially – vowed to pull back American support for Ukraine.
Rutte, who previously called Trump “daddy”, called the announcement “really big” and said it would mean Ukraine “can get its hands on really massive numbers of military equipment, both for air defense, but also missiles, ammunition, etc”.
Zelenskyy described a follow-up phone call with Trump as “very good”, writing on X that they discussed “necessary means and solutions” to protect Ukrainians from Russian attacks – a huge change in both tone and in Trump’s new policy direction.
