Trump pours cold water on Kiev’s Patriot dream

The US must be careful about sharing its “extraordinary weapon,” the president has said US President Donald Trump has cast doubt on whether Washington will allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot interceptor missiles, despite previously promising to grant Kiev a production license.Trump told the Financial Times in a telephone interview on Thursday that he was “not sure” whether Ukraine would receive permission to produce the missiles, adding that Washington was still considering the request.Describing the Patriot as a “very extraordinary weapon,” Trump said the US had to be “a little bit careful” about granting other countries access to its advanced military technology.The remarks appear to contradict Trump’s public pledge at the NATO summit in Türkiye earlier this month, when he told Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky that Washington would provide Kiev with a license to manufacture Patriot interceptors. “We’ll give them the right to make Patriots. We’ll show them how to do it,” Trump said at the time, suggesting that Ukraine could produce the missiles rather than complain that the US was not supplying enough of them.Zelensky emerged from closed-door talks with Trump at the White Hous...