Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, in his second press briefing since the start of the Trump administration, told reporters Wednesday that as part of a larger Pentagon review the U.S. had halted shipments of air-defense rounds promised to Ukraine.
“What we’ve done here at the Department of Defense is create a framework to analyze what munitions we’re sending where,” Parnell said, stressing that the decision to fulfill munitions obligations still rests with President Donald Trump.
The decision to withhold aid was met with bipartisan shock and questioning on Capitol Hill. The White House confirmed that Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of defense for policy, made the decision earlier this week as part of the review.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican and longtime supporter of Ukraine who routinely talks with members of the country’s leadership, said it was “unacceptable” and quickly called for an “emergency briefing” from the White House and the Department of Defense.“There can be no half-measures in the defense of liberty. We must, as we always have, stand for peace through strength,” Fitzpatrick said in a post on X.
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Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the most senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement that “Secretary Hegseth and Under Secretary Colby seem to be ignoring” Trump’s previous commitments to supporting Ukraine by providing air-defense munitions and actually increasing the number of systems coming into the country.
Parnell claimed the halt was temporary and suggested it was possible the shipments could resume pending a wider review.
Ukraine said it had not been notified in advance about the reduction in aid.
The White House did not respond to questions about whether Trump previewed the pause in his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a NATO summit in the Netherlands last week.
According to the Pentagon, the number of air-defense and precision munitions the U.S. military needs to maintain warranted the decision to halt aid to ensure that “U.S. military readiness and defense priorities” could be preserved.
But the reconciliation bill recently passed by the Senate includes $23 billion specifically for what both chambers’ Armed Services committees called America’s “most important munitions.”
Parnell said he wanted to “applaud the Senate” during his remarks, saying that the bill would “directly help achieve the president’s peace-through-strength agenda, and will help equip our war fighters to protect the homeland against 21st-century threats.”
The funding is meant to go toward the production process for these and other weapons in support of the U.S.’s military-industrial base over the coming years.
Both Armed Services committees specifically pointed to production of “missile defense interceptors” in support of the administration’s executive orders as part of their priorities for the reconciliation budget increase.
Military suppliers have long said the Pentagon needs to provide a clear “demand signal” on these and other weapons so companies can better prepare to manufacture what the government needs. Even Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll has mentioned needing to “be a better customer.”
Parnell on Wednesday said that ethos required cutbacks to foreign military aid. “We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world,” he said.
But the Pentagon stressed that “our military has everything that it needs to conduct any mission, anywhere, anytime, all around the world.”
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John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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