The US Treasury Secretary: Washington sells weapons to Europe for Ukraine with a 10% markup

The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that European countries are buying weapons from the United States with a 10 percent markup and transferring them to Ukraine.

He said this on Fox News.

According to Bessent, the markup on weapons can cover the costs of arming Ukraine within the framework of security guarantees, in particular, for the protection of Ukrainian skies.

The minister added that the US expects to recoup the money invested after the end of the war through economic partnership with Ukraine.

"We have created this economic partnership, which, once the conflict stops, can bring significant benefits to American taxpayers. We will be able to return our investments. If everything is good in Ukraine, it will be good for us. But for this, the conflict must stop," Bessent noted.

The Treasury Secretary added that the US is already launching separate investments for this, but President Donald Trump, he said, is "acting with caution and care".

Security guarantees for Ukraine

At the talks in Washington involving Trump, Zelensky, and a number of European leaders on August 18, the issue of Ukrainian security guarantees was key. In particular, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stated that the parties would begin by considering guarantees similar to those in Article 5 of the NATO Charter.

After the meeting, Trump wrote that the parties discussed what guarantees various European countries would provide under US coordination.

Zelensky reported a package of Ukrainian proposals for the purchase of American weapons worth $90 billion — they should become part of security guarantees.

Later, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that after the war, Ukraine would have the right to conclude security agreements not only with the United States and European countries. Washington is currently working on this.

The WSJ also reported that Rubio could lead a working group that would draft security guarantees for Ukraine. The group would consist of national security advisers and NATO representatives.

The security guarantees would include the following components: military presence, air defense, armaments, and monitoring of the cessation of hostilities.

Trump later said the United States was prepared to provide air support to Ukraine if a potential peace deal with Russia was reached. But he ruled out deploying US troops on Ukrainian territory.

• In August, it became known that the US and NATO are developing a new approach to supplying weapons to Ukraine, using funds from NATO countries to purchase or transfer American weapons. The new mechanism aims to supply American weapons from the list of priority needs of Ukraine — PURL.
• Ukraine will identify priority needs for amounts of approximately $500 million, after which NATO allies will agree on which of them will pay or transfer certain items.
• The Netherlands and a group of Scandinavian countries — Denmark, Norway, Sweden — have already committed to financing the first two packages, each of which also costs about $500 million. Germany has financed the third such package.

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