strikeMar 31, 2026

Trump Links Biden's Ukraine Aid to Pentagon's Iran War Funding Request - FactCheck.org

Summary

With the Pentagon potentially seeking a $200 billion supplemental package to fund the ongoing war with Iran, President Donald Trump defended that figure in part by saying U.S. ammunition “was taken down by giving so much to Ukraine.” He then exaggerated the amount of aid to Ukraine and falsely said that former President Joe Biden “didn’t rebuild anything” in the defense stockpile. Trump has a point that the military assistance provided to Ukraine reduced the U.S. reserve of weapons. But that aid largely has not affected the military operations in Iran, defense experts told us. Furthermore, Biden signed multiple spending bills passed by Congress that included funding to replace the older weapons that the U.S. gave to Ukraine with new items. Experts also told us that Biden’s administration put money into increasing the production of munitions for the military. “Of course, the Biden administration built a lot in terms of military equipment,” Mark F. Cancian, senior adviser for the defense and security department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told us in an email. “Whether it did enough is another question.” The subject of the $200 billion request came up during a March 19 meeting in the Oval Office when a reporter asked Trump why the funding would be necessary if, as Trump had said, the war with Iran would “pretty soon” be over. “Well, we’re asking for a lot of reasons beyond even what we’re talking about in Iran,” the president responded. He went on to add: “We want to have vast amounts of ammunition, which we have right now. We have a lot of ammunition, but it was taken down by giving so much to Ukraine. They gave so much. You know, Biden gave $350 billion worth of cash and military equipment to Ukraine, and he didn’t rebuild anything.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also brought up Biden when asked about the potential $200 billion supplemental in a press conference that same day. “As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move,” Hegseth said. “It takes money to kill bad guys. So, we’re going back to Congress and folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is – everything’s refilled and not just refilled, but above and beyond.” He went on to say: “And I think, you know, we’re also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, which was – which was depleting those stock holds and not sending them to our own military, but to Ukraine – which is when, every time we reach back and look at any sort of a challenge we have, it goes back to well, send it to Ukraine.” But as we’ve written, the U.S. did not give “$350 billion worth of cash and military equipment to Ukraine.” Trump has made that false claim multiple times. During the Biden administration, nearly $183 billion – not including a $20 billion loan – was made available for aid to Ukraine, after Russia invaded in February 2022, according to a report released in February 2025 by a special inspector general overseeing U.S. support for Ukraine. The vast majority of that money was authorized by Congress in a series of bipartisan appropriations bills. A portion of the funding was dedicated to military assistance rather than humanitarian or other financial aid. Biden’s Defense Department said in a January 2025 fact sheet that it committed more than $66.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, including approximately $65.9 billion following the invasion by Russia in early 2022. Part of that military aid included the transfer of a variety of missiles, artillery, tanks and other armaments from the Defense Department. Defense experts told us that aid has temporarily reduced the U.S. reserve of available weapons. “It is true that U.S. stockpiles are badly depleted by aid to Ukraine,” Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates a “restrained foreign policy,” told us in an email. “This long-term problem will take time to address. It is not something that has been resolved and is ongoing across many types of munitions and air defense.” However, she said it would be “misleading” to suggest that military aid to Ukraine is responsible for most of the “current munitions concerns” in Iran because of the type of weapons that have been used in the war to date. “With the exception of Patriot interceptors, most [of] the munitions in use in the Middle East were not given to Ukraine at any point,” Kavanagh said, referring to the PATRIOT air defense systems that can shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. For example, the Washington Post reported, citing anonymous sources, that the U.S. used more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Iran in a month, raising concerns among some Pentagon officials about the limited supply. But the U.S. has not given Tomahawks to Ukraine, even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has requested them. Cancian, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also told us in an email that besides “Patriot batteries and missiles,” which Ukraine has used “extensively” against Russia, the munitions the U.S. gave to Ukraine “were almost entirely for ground forces, which is not an issue in the current war.” So far, U.S. ground troops have not been ordered into combat. The U.S. and Israel have conducted joint airstrikes since launching the attack on Iran on Feb. 28. But thousands of American soldiers were recently deployed to the Middle East in case Trump does authorize ground operations. “So, it is fair to link Ukraine aid to shortages in U.S. Patriot missile stockpiles, but not limited magazine depth more broadly,” Kavanagh said. “That larger problem stems from years of low production and constraints on the U.S. defense industrial base.” Cancian said that CSIS has estimated that the inventory of Patriot missiles will last through the war with Iran, but “will be well below what war planners want for a possible conflict in the western Pacific.” Exact figures are not available because inventory totals are classified. Meanwhile, both defense experts told us that Trump was wrong to claim that Biden did nothing as president to try to “rebuild” the stockpile. “The Biden administration invested heavily in the U.S. defense industrial base and began a massive ramp-up in the production of many types of munitions that Trump continues,” Kavanagh said. “Much of the funding in the defense supplemental appropriations went to this purpose and the Pentagon made a real effort to expand munitions production and stockpiles. Some would say that Biden did not do enough or acted too slowly, but these are judgment calls. It is not accurate to say he built nothing.” Cancian said that Biden “began the process of expanding munitions production by investing money in facilities and signing multiyear contracts.” He also noted that Congress, under Biden, appropriated money to replace all the military equipment that the U.S. sent to Ukraine. Biden made that point himself in an October 2023 address to the American public. “Let me be clear about something,” the former president said. “We send Ukraine equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores, our own stockpiles, with new equipment. Equipment that defends America and is made in America.” The issue, Cancian said, is that “it will take years before all of the replacement equipment arrives.” He said, “That gap constitutes risk if other conflicts break out.” On Jan. 20, 2025, the day that Biden left office, the State Department said that Presidential Drawdown Authority had been used 55 times since August 2021 to provide military assistance to Ukraine “totaling approximately $31.7 billion from DoD stockpiles.” The February 2025 report from the Ukraine oversight inspector general said that Congress appropriated $45.8 billion to replace the materials the Defense Department donated to Ukraine. Notably, when we asked about the $200 billion Pentagon request and Trump’s and Hegseth’s claims about Biden draining the U.S. stockpile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the U.S. has all that it needs for operations in Iran. “The US military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and weapons stockpiles to achieve the goals of Operation Epic Fury laid out by President Trump — and beyond,” she said in an emailed statement. “Nevertheless,” she went on, “President Trump has always been intensely focused on strengthen[ing] our Armed Forces and he will continue to call on defense contractors to more speedily build American-made weapons, which are the best in the world.” Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102.

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SECTIONS Crude oil prices rise ; Iran Reuters