Amid escalating tensions between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday dodged three times when asked whether Ukraine is an ally of the United States.
“We provide the three different things ... to Ukraine, so that’s what you do for an ally. We’re not providing those to Russia,” Bessent told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” the second time he was asked whether the U.S. considers Ukraine an ally.
Asked for a third time, the treasury secretary simply said, “I’m not the secretary of state. I’m not the president.”
Earlier, Bessent said the U.S. supports Ukraine in three keys ways, including providing intelligence, Starlink support and allowing NATO to purchases U.S. weapons to resell to Ukraine.
He then accused Europe of falling short in its support for Ukraine, saying: “When President Zelenskyy asked for Patriots [missile systems], NATO — the European members of NATO — they have plenty of Patriots. Why aren’t they forthcoming with the Patriots?”
Bessent’s comments came shortly after Zelenskyy appeared on the program and told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that it would be a “historic mistake” for the U.S. to side with Russia in the ongoing war.
The Ukrainian president, who has had a sometimes tense and sometimes friendly relationship with the U.S. president, said of Trump that “we want to trust him” and “I hope that he will change his decisions.”
The current tension between the U.S. and Ukrainian leaders comes after Trump last weekend said that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an “energy ceasefire,” a move that caught some European allies by surprise. For days, Zelenskyy halted Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy infrastructure but insisted that Russia was not abiding by the same agreement.
Days ago, Ukraine’s military resumed its strikes on Russian oil refineries and accused the U.S. of withholding intelligence about incoming Russian strikes that the U.S. normally shares with Ukraine. Zelenskyy also accused tech mogul and Trump ally Elon Musk of limiting the country’s access to Starlink, which Ukraine uses to track drones and defend itself.
In his “Meet the Press,” interview, Zelenskyy said Starlink speed limitations are interfering with Ukrainian forces’ ability to block drones and that he believes the decision to limit the speed was a “message from American government.”
The Ukrainian president also told “Meet the Press” that intelligence-sharing from the U.S. was blocked for a period of time.
Trump denied that the U.S. had stopped sharing certain intelligence, and Starlink services later resumed at normal speed.
On Sunday, Bessent criticized Zelenskyy for publicly accusing the U.S. and Musk of limiting his resources in the war, saying: “President Trump and Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio have categorically said that no one in the Trump administration did that, and I think it is very reckless for President Zelenskyy to make such a charge.”
On Friday, the U.S. president also announced he would waive certain sanctions on Russia that were recently approved by Congress in a bipartisan vote. Earlier in the month, Trump said he would allow Russia “immediately” to begin selling hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel on the global market.
On Sunday, Bessent denied that Trump lifted any sanctions, instead telling “Meet the Press” that the president wanted a 60-day pause “so we can examine what’s going on.”
“The only thing that has been lifted is the diesel embargo,” he added.
The treasury secretary also accused Zelenskyy of presenting a “false binary” about the war in his earlier interview.
“President Trump has made it clear that he wants to end this war; that it must stop. And President Zelenskyy presented a false binary this morning that Ukraine must win,” Bessent said. “The war must end, and that will be with some kind of a negotiated settlement. And President Trump is working on that every day.”