Trump is Making Money from the War despite the Human Sacrifices

News:

On 14 July, the Russian news service BBC News reported: ‘US President Donald Trump has urged Moscow to resolve the conflict in Ukraine within 50 days, threatening otherwise to impose ’very severe tariffs" on its trading partners. In addition, the US and NATO have agreed to supply Kiev with ‘a really huge amount of military equipment’.

‘We will impose very severe tariffs if we don't reach an agreement within 50 days, tariffs of about 100 per cent,’ Trump said, adding that these would be ‘secondary tariffs’ aimed at Russia's trading partners.

The US president also said that Ukraine will be provided with billions of dollars worth of military equipment: Washington is going to ‘produce top quality weapons’ and send them to NATO, and then the alliance will send them ‘where they are needed’.

Comment:

Trump's threats against Russia with ‘secondary tariffs’ and promises of arms supplies to Ukraine, sound more like a well thought out plan. Yes, it is clear that Trump is unhappy that the military conflict in Ukraine is dragging on, but ultimately the US benefits more than others.

Assuming that the US plans were to renew the relevance of NATO in Europe, we see that since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the relevance of NATO has been achieved and 2 more countries have joined the alliance. Thoughts that Russia is preparing to attack one of the EU countries do not give rest to European politicians. The EU is arming itself and buying weapons from the US. Throughout the war, we can observe that the US supplies arms in doses and with conditions, we can say remotely control the course of the war.

Trump claims that the EU will pay for all the costs of the war and has also increased contributions to NATO from 2 per cent to 5 per cent of the country's GDP. The latest arms supplies to Ukraine will go through NATO, at the expense of Europe, and into the US piggy bank. That is, the US is well on its way to making money from this war.

If we assume that the US plan was to cut Europe off from Russia's energy resources and sell oil and gas to Europe itself, the US has also succeeded here. Europe has already reduced its purchases of Russian oil and gas, although not by 100%, but by far. According to Eurostat, the EU ban on Russian crude oil imports by sea came into force on 5 December 2022, followed by an embargo on oil products from 5 February 2023. In the first quarter of 2025, the largest oil suppliers to the EU were the US (15.0 per cent), Norway (13.5 per cent) and Kazakhstan (12.7 per cent), while the US was also the first to supply LNG (50.7 per cent).

War and spending on arms is weakening the EU, which is also one of the US plans. After the US unilaterally committed itself to resolving the Ukraine conflict without the EU, European politicians were deeply hurt. In response, with its usual cunning and guile, Britain has begun to thwart US plans by disrupting agreements between Russia and America. Britain seeks to break up Russia and helps Ukraine in every possible way, even contradicting US interests. But this serves the US well, as the EU, Ukraine and Russia are being depleted, while the US stands aside and waits, wasting nothing but time and making money on arms sales.

Western powers such as the United States, Britain and France are frankly indifferent to the fate of the Ukrainian people. They are fighting among themselves for the right to possess the natural resources of Ukraine. And that is why the war is dragging on and there will be many human casualties, as human life is worthless in the capitalist system, the philosophy of which is pragmatism, where actions are considered from the point of view of benefit and profit. As long as there is a benefit in this war for the US, Britain or France, the war will drag on.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Eldar Khamzin
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir