US has given more aid to Ukraine than any other country, and has $400M more allocated for this year. So lets cut the bullshit about excluding all the times anything other than $0 was supplied -- it's putting a major spin and presenting things in a deviously false way.
This kind of rhetoric is why we're bitter about it. We give the most out of anyone, yet there is still this sort of welfare queen bullshit of vell vwhat have you done for uz lately when something simple is asked back like some help with drones. Despite giving more than anyone, the best thanks we can get is "but that one time, you gave us $0, so none of this counts" and by the way, if you want drones then fuck you pay me. The sense of smug entitlement is off the charts.
You're unwittingly displaying why the kind of lies Trump told to get elected worked. Of course Trump was totally being fraudulent about his "no new wars" rhetoric (his rhetoric about having Europe pick up their share did have some truth), but there's a reason why his rhetoric worked.
You are anthropomorphizing the government of Ukraine. At the start of the war they needed US money and weapons and asked for it. We gave it to them. They survived.
Then we withdrew support. They survived anyway. Now, they have expertise and equipment that we could really use. Now you want the US government to simply demand the equipment as payment for the help earlier? They will say no.
The money and weapons we gave them earlier weren't wasted. It bought the survival of Ukraine and a bunch of dead Russians. It also bought the existence of a country that has effective and critical defense equipment.
Now, by buying drones from Ukraine, we make our military assets dramatically safer, save money, hurt our adversaries, and increase our effectiveness all at the same time. But you're complaining about Ukraines "tone".
Your terms are acceptable, and you're totally right, what was given before were aid so they have no hard obligation to reciprocate. You want to boil it down to open market operations and I have no qualms with that as that favors the US taxpayer way more than it would Ukraine.
We will buy whatever wish we want to buy at market prices, and if they want more money they can give us their minerals or hard assets at market rate in exchange and eliminate the $400M allocated to them and all the other handouts since this is now a capitalist tic for tat endeavor per your proposal. From here on out, if they want anything, intel, whatever: fuck you pay us. They have a lot of excellent farm land and minerals and transferring those to the US in a purely capitalist trade for any further cash or military assistance could be a fair deal since you're rejecting a reciprocal aid approach.
It is the US government that threw reciprocity overboard, openly and publicly humiliating allies and partners throughout the past year, threatening to invade several NATO allies, publicly mocking soldiers from allied countries who had fought and died in US-led wars, and kicking Ukraine at its most vulnerable moment in an attempt to coerce it into surrender. Not to mention global economic warefare in the form of illegal trade barriers. The US government championed isolationism, and this is what the first taste of isolationism feels like.
For most of the world, the US-Iran war carries minimal upside (the reduction of Iran-sponsored terror groups in the Middle East) for considerable risk (terror attacks on their citizens). Previously, allies and partners were willing to grant access to their airbases and provide other forms of support and put their citizens at risk to maintain good relations with the US, because that meant something. With Trump in the White House, the US has become an unreliable and unpredictible banana republic, where government action is not grounded in sound policy or long-term international relationships, but depends entirely on the moods of El Presidente and serves his personal wallet.
He has made time and time again clear that he is not bound by any earlier agreements and commitments, so it should not come as a surprise when others respond with the same and propose starting negotiations from a clean slate.
This kind of rhetoric is why we're bitter about it. We give the most out of anyone, yet there is still this sort of welfare queen bullshit of vell vwhat have you done for uz lately when something simple is asked back like some help with drones. Despite giving more than anyone, the best thanks we can get is "but that one time, you gave us $0, so none of this counts" and by the way, if you want drones then fuck you pay me. The sense of smug entitlement is off the charts.
You're unwittingly displaying why the kind of lies Trump told to get elected worked. Of course Trump was totally being fraudulent about his "no new wars" rhetoric (his rhetoric about having Europe pick up their share did have some truth), but there's a reason why his rhetoric worked.