A day after the White House confirmed that the U.S. has suspended some military aid to Ukraine, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson said the decision stemmed from a larger review of America’s military support for countries around the world.
“We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world. We have to look out for America and defending our homeland,” Sean Parnell said in his first standalone briefing Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Politico and other outlets reported that the U.S. had paused the delivery of some munitions, including crucial air defense interceptors, to Ukraine after a review led by Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s head of policy.
A spokesperson for the White House confirmed the news and said the hiatus occurred after the Pentagon finished reviewing American military aid to other countries and that the “decision was made to put America’s interests first.”
On Wednesday, Parnell said the review was still ongoing, though he wouldn’t say what weapons were affected, who ordered the pause and who is leading the Pentagon’s review.
It also wasn’t clear when that review would end or what other countries would be affected. America is a leading provider of military equipment to Israel and Taiwan, among other nations.
“Part of our job is to give the president a framework that he can use to evaluate how many munitions we have and where we’re sending them. That review process is happening right now,” Parnell said.
Before taking office, Colby and many of the policy officials now serving under him had argued that the Pentagon was overstretching already-thin stockpiles by supporting Ukraine and that it need to better prioritize a potential conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific.
Still, six months into office, the Trump administration has focused mainly on the Middle East with an extended bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and massive airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.
Foreign military sales have also continued into the administration, including a $500 million package of munitions approved for Israel on Monday.
While introducing the military’s delayed budget request last week, a senior defense official said that the Pentagon was reviewing its foreign support, including a long-term aid program for Ukraine that had been cut as a result.
“They ran a process alongside our budget process to look at the foreign assistance programs that they manage and decide which ones were no longer aligned with this administration,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The Trump administration last froze U.S. military support for Ukraine in March after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disastrous visit to the Oval Office, which ended in a shouting match. That pause also included the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine, though it only lasted a week.
President Donald Trump had appeared to soften his stance on the war since then, signing a long-awaited critical minerals agreement with Ukraine and telling reporters at the NATO summit last week that he was considering sending more air defense assets to Kyiv.
“We’re going to see if we can make some available,” Trump said of the highly coveted Patriot interceptors. “You know, they’re very hard to get. We need them, too.”
Throughout the war, Ukraine has said these air defense missiles are its top priority in order to better protect its cities from Russia’s missile and drone attacks.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
