Prime Minister Dick Schoof says the U.S. suspending aid to Ukraine would be "bad news"

Prime Minister Dick Schoof thinks it is “bad news” if the reports that the United States is going to stop their military aid to Ukraine are true. American Media outlets reported that U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to stop all military aid to Ukraine after the argument that he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday.

The Dutch prime minister thinks that Europe cannot continue without U.S. support. “Europe will struggle to fill that gap in the short term. It may be possible in the long term.” He also added that it is important that the transatlantic relations stays intact.

Schoof said that efforts are currently being made to keep Americans involved. “We need to continue investing in this. We, along with the Americans, need to guarantee Europe’s safety.”

The argument between Trump and Zelenskyy needs to be solved quickly in order to make this happen, the prime minister said. “It is very important that it is solved between those two.”

The prime minister also pushed for further Dutch investment in the country’s Defense. He would not add how much of the country’s economy should be spent on this.

VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius has said that the U.S. stopping their aid to Ukraine would be very serious. “At the moment, we can do very little without the Americans.”

She joined Schoof in pushing for more investment into the Defense sector of European countries. “I think that we should significantly increase investments, but countries will also have to make tough internal decisions first,” said Yeşilgöz-Zegerius.

The Coalition party leader thinks that common European debts, so-called eurobonds, are "a few bridges too far.” The liberal parties have never been in favor of that "and I am not either. If every country were to spend 2 percent of their economy on defense, that would already yield tens of billions of euros extra", Yeşilgöz emphasized.

PVV leader Geert Wilders would not comment on reports that the American government has suspended all military aid to Ukraine. Wilders was very enthusiastic about Trump’s election victory, and has only recently begun shifting his stance towards more committed support for Ukraine.

Wilders did say that the most important thing that needs to happen now is to restore the relationship between Ukraine and the United States. “If that does not happen, and the Americans continue to distance themselves, not only from Ukraine, but also from Europe, from NATO, then the end is nigh,” he said on Tuesday.

Europe cannot fill the military gap that the U.S. would create by withdrawing from these relationships, Wilders said. “If you look at the intelligence capacity, the satellite capacity, the long-range missiles, you name it. I can now name 20 examples where we would not be able to fill that gap for another 10 years. So it is not only in the Ukrainian interest, it is also in the Dutch interest, that the relationship with the United States is quickly restored and that there is work towards peace.”

Further, the PVV is open to spending extra money on defense, he said during discussions over the annual spring budget memorandum that the Cabinet and coalition parties develop every year before June. In exchange, Wilders said that more money also needs to be made available to relieve the citizenry of burdens they face.

“I am not saying ‘no’ to more spending on the military in the Netherlands, for example, but then a very large amount must also be made available for the people at home, because once again that is what it is about,” Wilders said on Tuesday. According to him, “billions” must also go to the latter.

The Americans want Europe to spend much more money on its own security. According to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, the standard for defense expenditure must increase from 2 percent to possibly more than 3 percent of gross domestic product.

The coalition parties will negotiate the spring memorandum in the coming weeks. The update of the current budget also looks at expenditures for the coming years.

Many Ukrainians are wondering when and how quickly Europe is going to do something about the country's situation, said Bob Wouda, a Dutch man who lives with his family in Kyiv. “Don’t keep having meetings. Do something! Send us the things that we need.”

American President Donald Trump’s decision to stop all military aid to Ukraine would be “idiotic,” Wouda said. “But you can’t do anything about it. That man in America is crazy. People laugh at him here, and there are many cartoons about it.”

Wouda said that Ukrainians see Trump as a mouthpiece for Putin. “He is like a small child that does not get his way,” he said about the argument that occured in the Oval Office in Washington on Friday, and the minerals deal, which was left unsigned.

“Europe is now being forced to do more themselves,” said Wouda. He added that this is what the Ukrainians have wanted to happen for a long time. Wouda is the chairman of the Stichting Platform Samenwerking Nederland-Oekraïne, a foundation for cooperation between the Netherlands and Ukraine. He regularly visits the Netherlands for this purpose.

According to Wouda, life goes on in Kyiv, and people have now gotten used to wartime. Returning to the Netherlands is not an option for Wouda and his family. “You are used to war.”

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, in what was a major escalation of the war between the two countries. This has led to years of fighting in the country. Trump and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance accused Zelensky of being disrespectful and ungrateful to the U.S. for their support during this conflict. This led to a heated exchange, with Trump now announcing the end of military to Ukraine from the country.