Here's how Trump's former officials reportedly got him to sign off on a missile deal with Ukraine

(Image credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

published 16 November 2019

It's helpful to be able to read your boss if you want something done at work.

Current and former Trump administration officials told The Wall Street Journal that President Trump was pretty adamant that he did not want to provide Ukraine with the U.S.-made Javelin antitank missiles Kyiv requested in 2017 in the hopes of defending itself against Russia. Trump's hostility reportedly stemmed from the fact that he long considered Ukraine a "corrupt country" and that he wanted European countries to do more to protect their neighbors, rather than have countries like Ukraine lean so heavily on the U.S.

But then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and then-Defense Secretary James Mattis told Kyiv not to worry. They promised that Washington would grant the request for the missiles once Trump was in a better mood, one foreign official briefed on the matter told the Journal. Lo and behold, the Trump administration passed its tax-reform bill in December 2017, which energized the president. The next day, Trump signed off on the missile deal, though the Journal notes that his largely negative view of Ukraine remained in tact. Read more about how Trump's opinion of Ukraine was shaped over time at The Wall Street Journal.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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