News Forum - US to send Ukraine anti-drone military aid package worth US$275 million

[Thaiger]

The US is planning to send Ukraine an anti-drone military aid package that is reportedly worth US$275 million. The incoming military aid is said to offer new tools to strengthen air defences and defeat drones. According to Reuters and The Straits Times, the package could be officially announced today. The Pentagon is also expected to include Lockheed Martin rockets for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars) launchers in the aid package. Additionally, the Pentagon is also expected to send 155mm ammunition, Humvee military vehicles and generators. The military aid package would be covered by the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows […]

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[EdwardV]

European officials are furious with US President Joe Biden’s administration, accusing it of making a fortune from the Russia-Ukraine war while European Union countries suffer. One senior official told the American, German-owned newspaper, Politico, that the “US is profiting from the war because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons.”

The problem with that is it's not true: 

 

"The EU is under immense pressure to cap the price of imported natural gas to contain energy costs — but many of the companies making a fortune selling cheap U.S. gas to the Continent at eye-watering markups are European ... French President Emmanuel Macron told a group of industrial players last week. "The United States is a producer of cheap gas that they are selling us at a high price ... I don't think that's friendly." Macron's dig conveniently ignored that the largest European holder of long-term U.S. gas contracts is none other than France's own TotalEnergies ... Unlike some producers — for example in the Middle East — which restrict the final destination of the LNG to consumers in Asia and prevent it being sold onward at a higher price, American gas changes ownership the minute it's loaded onto a ship and comes with no strings attached. That leaves buyers free to redirect the precious supply wherever it's most profitable — sometimes at the expense of their downstream clients, if it's cheaper to break those pre-existing domestic delivery commitments. "We can only control what we can control," said Cheniere's Grindal. "U.S. LNG is destination-free."

https://www.politico.eu/article/cheap-us-gas-cost-fortune-europe-russia-ukraine-energy/

As for weapons, the US isn't selling them to Ukraine. They are giving them for free. The cost associated with the weapon packages are what it cost the US to buy them originally. Congress than appropriates that money back into the defense budget to purchase replacement or new weapons for America. It's pretty much the same with European countries. You could make the argument the US is making money from selling weapons to European countries. However, no one is holding a gun to their head (pun intended) to force them to buy, or to buy from the US. To be fair, most of what Europe is buying is to compensate for the fact they under spent for the last three decades. Pretty sure that one is on Europe.