PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Monday suggested that he may reverse President Joe Biden's recent decision to allow Ukrainian forces to use American long-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Trump called the decision made by Biden last month “stupid." He also expressed anger that his incoming administration was not consulted before Biden made the move. With the loosening of the restrictions, Biden gave Ukraine long-sought permission to use the Army Tactical Missile System provided by the U.S. to strike Russian positions hundreds 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 during at a wide-ranging news conference 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.”
Trump's withering criticism of the Biden administration's move comes as the Democratic administration aims to push every last dollar already designated for Ukraine out the door to help repel Russia's invasion before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, with future aid uncertain.
But even as Biden tries to surge weaponry and other aid to Ukraine in his final five weeks in office, the moment underscored that it's Trump who holds the most significant influence over how Ukraine can use its U.S.-provided arsenal in the long run. It’s a critical piece of leverage he could use to try to follow through on his campaign pledge to bring about a swift end to the conflict.
Asked if he would consider reversing the Biden administration decision, Trump responded: “I might. I think it was a very stupid thing to do.”
The White House pushed back on Trump’s criticism, noting that the decision was made after months of deliberations that started before last month’s election.
“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 of the current administration's coordination with the outgoing administration.
Trump's relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. Trump publicly sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence officials on whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help him, and Trump has praised the Russian leader and even called him “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.
Vice President-elect JD Vance has said that while the U.S. has differences with Russia, it was counterproductive to approach Moscow as an enemy.
Trump on Monday 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.”
But Trump also appeared to acknowledge that finding an immediate endgame to the war — something he has previously said he could get done within 24 hours of taking office — could be difficult.
“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.”
Trump declined to say whether he has spoken with Putin since the election.
Zelenskyy met with Trump in Paris earlier this month, 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 U.S. intelligence that predicts Russia could again launch its lethal new intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine soon.
Putin deployed the missile for the first time last month days after Biden loosened the restrictions on Ukraine. Putin warned the West that Russia's next use could be against Ukraine’s NATO allies who allowed Kyiv to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
Biden agreed to loosen the restrictions after Zelenskyy and many of his Western supporters had pressed Biden for months. They argued that the U.S. ban had made it impossible for Ukraine to try to stop Russian attacks on its cities and electrical grids.
The outgoing president ultimately made the decision last month amid concerns about Russia deploying thousands of North Korean troops to help it claw back land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized this year.
White House National Security spokesman John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President-elect Donald Trump arrives for a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
BOSTON (AP) — Two men, including a dual Iranian American citizen, have been arrested on charges that they exported sensitive technology to Iran that was used in a drone attack in Jordan that killed three American troops early this year and injured dozens of other service members, the Justice Department said Monday.
The pair were arrested after FBI specialists who analyzed the drone traced the navigation system to an Iranian company operated by one of the defendants, who relied on technology funneled from the U.S. by his alleged co-conspirator, officials said.
“We often cite hypothetical risk when we talk about the dangers of American technology getting into dangerous hands,” said U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts. “Unfortunately, in this situation, we are not speculating.”
The defendants were identified as Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, who prosecutors say works at a Massachusetts-based semiconductor company, and Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, who was arrested Monday in Italy as the Justice Department seeks his extradition to Massachusetts.
Prosecutors allege that Abedininajafabadi, who also uses the surname Adedini and operates an Iranian company that manufactures navigation systems for drones, has connections to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. They allege that he conspired with Sadeghi to circumvent American export control laws, including through a front company in Switzerland, and procure sensitive technology into Iran.
Both men are charged with export control violations, and Abedini separately faces charges of conspiring to provide material support to Iran. A lawyer for Sadeghi, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was arrested Monday in Massachusetts, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
U.S. officials blamed the January attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes Kataib Hezbollah.
Three Georgia soldiers — Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Sgt. Breonna Moffett of Savannah and Sgt. Kennedy Sanders of Waycross — were killed in the Jan. 28 drone attack on a U.S. outpost in northeastern Jordan called Tower 22.
In the attack, the one-way attack drone may have been mistaken for a U.S. drone that was expected to return back to the logistics base about the same time and was not shot down.
Instead, it crashed into living quarters, killing the three soldiers and injuring more than 40.
“To the people who were injured by this attack, to the loved ones and family members of the people who lost their lives, as the son of a combat veteran I humbly hope that today’s charges bring some measure of justice and accountability,” Levy said.
Tower 22 held about 350 U.S. military personnel at the time. It is strategically located between Jordan and Syria, only 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Iraqi border, and in the months just after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and Israel’s blistering response in Gaza, Iranian-backed militias intensified their attacks on U.S. military locations in the region.
Following the attack, the U.S. launched a huge counterstrike against 85 sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Iranian-backed militia and bolstered Tower 22’s defenses.
Tucker and Copp reported from Washington.
Christine Chambers, Assistant Special Agent in Charge U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Export Enforcement, Boston Field Office, right, speaks to reporters as U.S. Attorney District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy, left, looks on during a news conference, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, at the federal courthouse, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
U.S. Attorney District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy takes questions from reporters during a news conference, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, at the federal courthouse, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
U.S. Attorney District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy, right, faces reporters as Special Agent in Charge FBI, Boston Division Jodi Cohen, left, looks on during a news conference, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, at the federal courthouse, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
FILE - President Joe Biden, right, stands as an Army carry team moves the transfer case containing the remains of U.S. Army Sgt. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Ga., at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Friday, Feb. 2, 2024, after Sanders was killed in a drone attack in Jordan on Jan. 28. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
Special Agent in Charge FBI, Boston Division Jodi Cohen, right, speaks to reporters as U.S. Attorney District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy, left, looks on during a news conference, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, at the federal courthouse, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
U.S. Attorney District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy takes questions from reporters during a news conference, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, at the federal courthouse, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Christine Chambers, Assistant Special Agent in Charge U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Export Enforcement, Boston Field Office, faces reporters during a news conference, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, at the federal courthouse, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
FILE - This combination of photos provided by Shawn Sanders, left, and the U.S. Army, center and right, show from left to right, Sgt. Kennedy Sanders, Staff Sgt. William Jerome Rivers and Sgt. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett. The three U.S. Army Reserve soldiers from Georgia, all of whom received posthumous promotions in rank, were killed by a drone strike on Jan. 28, 2024, on their base in Jordan near the Syrian border. The first funeral service was scheduled Tuesday morning, Feb. 13, for Rivers at a Baptist church in Carrollton, west of Atlanta. (Shawn Sanders and U.S. Army via AP, File)
U.S. Attorney District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy, right, faces reporters as Special Agent in Charge FBI, Boston Division Jodi Cohen, left, looks on during a news conference, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, at the federal courthouse, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
