US President-elect Donald Trump on Monday upped the ante against outgoing President suggesting that he may reverse Biden’s decision to allow Ukrainian forces to use American long-range weapons to deepen into Russian territory.
Calling Biden’s decision “stupid,” Trump said that his incoming administration was not consulted before the move to allow Ukraine to use Army Tactical Missile System to strike Russian positions hundred miles from its border.
“I don’t think that should have been allowed, not when there’s a possibility – certainly not just weeks before I take over,” Trump said at a presser at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
“Why would they do that without asking me what I thought? I wouldn’t have had him do that. I think it was a big mistake,” he added.
Asked if he would consider reversing the Biden administration decision, Trump responded: “I might. I think it was a very stupid thing to do.”
Meanwhile, the White House pushed back on Trump’s criticism and said that the decision was made after months of deliberations that started before the US presidential elections.
“All I can assure you is that in the conversations we’ve had with them since the election, and we’ve had at various levels, we have articulated to them the logic behind it, the thinking behind it, why we were doing it,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said.
Trump reiterated his call on both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war, calling the death and despair caused by the conflict “carnage.”
“I think the Middle East will be in a good place,” Trump said, referring to the conflict in Gaza and an unsettled Syria following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. “I think actually more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine situation.”
Earlier this month, Zelenskyy met with Trump in Paris while the president-elect was visiting France for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have been making a forceful effort to get Trump to maintain support for Ukraine.
But the situation on the ground in Ukraine continues to remain complicated as both sides wrestle for a battlefield advantage that will give them leverage in any negotiations to end the nearly three-year war.
The Pentagon last week unveiled US intelligence that predicts Russia could again launch its lethal new intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine soon.