President Donald Trump declared on Thursday that Ukraine owes its continued existence as a fighting force entirely to the United States military and the enormous quantities of equipment and funding American taxpayers have supplied — and he offered the recent operations against Venezuela and Iran as the latest examples of what that military is capable of delivering.
Trump made the remarks on June 4, 2026, during a press availability at the White House following an announcement on domestic coal and energy production. The comments came in response to a question about China, but quickly expanded into a sweeping defense of U.S. military capability and a direct argument that without American intervention, Ukraine would have collapsed within days of Russia’s invasion.
“Ukraine has been given a tremendous amount,” Trump said. “Without our military and equipment, Ukraine wouldn’t be able to fight today. Just in terms of the question — we gave them hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment and the best equipment. We make the best equipment anywhere in the world. But they wouldn’t have lasted one or two days. They wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
The Foundation of Ukraine’s Defense
The United States has indeed been the backbone of Ukraine’s military capacity since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. By January 2025, the United States had committed more than $66.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the start of the Biden administration, including approximately $65.9 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked invasion on February 24, 2022.
Trump, who was sharply critical of that level of commitment during his campaign, nonetheless pointed to the early delivery of specific weapons systems as decisive — and claimed personal credit for some of the most impactful aid.
“Remember the anti-tank missiles? Remember those?” Trump said. “When the tanks got stuck in the mud and they went around and boom boom boom boom — that was given by yours truly.” He drew a pointed contrast with the previous administration, saying, “Obama gave sheets, and Trump gave one of the most devastating weapons.”
The World’s Greatest Military, on Full Display
Trump’s praise for the American military was not limited to Ukraine. He used recent combat operations as proof of a broader thesis — that the United States had rebuilt its armed forces into the most dominant fighting force on earth, and that the results were now visible for the world to see.
He pointed first to Venezuela. Operation Absolute Resolve, launched in the early hours of January 3, 2026, resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife within a matter of hours, executed by Delta Force operators and more than 150 aircraft from across the U.S. military. Trump noted the speed of the outcome. “Look at Venezuela — it was over in about 48 minutes,” he said. “They have a small military, different kind of military, but a lot of soldiers.”
Then came Iran. In the first 72 hours of Operation Epic Fury alone, U.S. forces struck more than 1,700 targets across Iran. The majority of the regime’s offensive weapons were destroyed, and Iran could no longer manufacture new ballistic missiles or long-range drones. Iran’s command and control structures were shattered, triggering leadership losses, paralysis, and military desertions across the armed forces.
“You look at Iran — we essentially wiped out their military,” Trump said Thursday. “No, there’s some missiles left, but very few compared to what they had.”
A Navy at the Bottom of the Ocean
Trump reserved particular emphasis for the destruction of Iran’s naval fleet, a detail he appeared to relish recounting. He told reporters that of Iran’s 159 ships, all 159 now sit at the bottom of the ocean — and that the United States had photographic evidence from below the surface to prove it.
In April 2026, Trump announced that the U.S. military had destroyed 158 Iranian naval vessels, asserting the Iranian navy had been “annihilated” and that 28 mine-dropping vessels had been sunk, leaving only a few small fast-attack boats remaining.
“You know what they have now?” Trump said of Iran’s navy. “Little run-abouts with a machine gun on the front. They’re like a net. That’s all they have.”
Building the Military That Made It Possible
Central to Trump’s argument on Thursday was the claim that the military now delivering these results is one he rebuilt from a state of decline. He contrasted what he described as a weakened force he inherited with the dominant one now operating across multiple theaters simultaneously.
“We had a military that was not good, and we rebuilt it,” Trump said. “I didn’t know I’d use it quite as much, but we used it.”
The president also pointed to what he called an unprecedented record on ending conflicts quickly. “With Vietnam, we were there for 19 years. With Iraq, it was about nine years,” he said. “We lost not one soldier in Venezuela. We didn’t lose one soldier. And we lost a total of 13 [in Iran] — which is 13 too many — but when you look at hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed in these various wars, they lasted many, many years. What we’ve done is amazing.”
Ukraine’s Fight, American Power
While Trump has been a sharp critic of open-ended U.S. commitments abroad, his remarks Thursday made clear he views the weapons and resources that kept Ukraine fighting as a point of pride rather than regret — evidence that American equipment is simply the best available, and that no country sustains a war without it.
Under Trump’s leadership, the U.S. and Ukraine entered into a historic agreement in 2025 to establish the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, framing the relationship between the two countries in terms of economic partnership going forward.
For Trump, the Ukraine conflict and the Iran and Venezuela operations are part of the same argument: that the United States military, as rebuilt and deployed under his watch, is without peer. Whether allies or adversaries, his message on Thursday was directed at both. “We have the greatest military,” he said. “We have the greatest military equipment anybody’s ever seen before.”