BBC Verify correspondent
Support for Ukraine has become a key issue since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
President Trump has made a number of claims about how much the United States has spent compared to European countries.
But some of his claims are questionable – with no evidence to back them up.
Has the United States spent $300-$350bn on Ukraine aid?
President Trump has made this claim on a number of occasions – including when he hosted France’s President Macron in the White House this week.
Short answer: Figures suggest the actual spend is much lower.
BBC Verify can find no evidence to back up the claim. There are different calculations on US spending in or related to Ukraine – and they produce a much lower figure.
The Kiel Institute is a German-based think tank tracking support going into Ukraine. It calculated that the United States spent $119.7bn (£94.3bn) on aid between January 2022 and December 2024.
Others have reached a higher figure – but with a broader definition of what counts as spending on Ukraine.
The US Department of Defense has provided a figure looking at all spending on Operation Atlantic Resolve – a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It says $182.8bn has been “appropriated” – a figure that covers US military training in Europe and replenishment of US defence stocks.
Either way, both figures are considerably lower than claimed by the president.
We asked the White House about the basis for the $350bn claim. So far, it hasn’t provided an explanation.
Has the United States spent $200bn more than Europe?
President Trump has claimed: “We’ve spent more than $300bn and Europe has spent about $100bn – that’s a big difference”
Short answer: Figures suggest Europe has spent more when all aid is included and, as above, we can’t find any evidence for the $300bn figure.
The United States is, by some margin, the largest single donor to Ukraine. But Europe combined has spent more money than the United States, according to the Kiel Institute.
The figure includes aid directly from the European Union, but also from bilateral deals from European countries, both inside and outside the EU. It includes military, financial and humanitarian aid.
They calculate that between 24 January 2022 and the end of 2024, Europe as a whole spent $138.7bn on Ukraine. In the same period, the United States spent $119.7bn, according to their figures.
NATO secretary general Mark Rutte made a similar argument, adding Canada into his calculation.
Mr Rutte said February 2025: “In 2024, NATO Allies provided over 50 billion euros in security assistance to Ukraine – nearly 60% of this coming from Europe and Canada.”
We asked for NATO’s figures, but they said they were classified.
Will Europe get its money back while the United States doesn’t?
This is a claim President Trump made when he hosted President Macron. It prompted President Macron to disagree, saying both Europe and the US had given a mixture of grants and loans.
Short answer: The EU has provided loans, but also grants.
President Macron is correct, according to Kiel figures. But they suggest President Trump also has a point; the US has sent more grants, while the EU sent more loans.
However, again, there are different figures out there.
The European Union says EU countries have provided around $145bn in aid so far and that just 35% of that has been loans. Like the United States Department of Defence, the EU has used a broader definition of what counts as aid to Ukraine.
EU loans will have been on generous terms – so Ukraine will be repaying less interest than it would normally. In some cases, Ukraine isn’t expected to pay anything, with repayments coming from revenues from frozen Russian assets.
What we can say is that aid to Ukraine has been a mixture of loans and grants.
How much has the UK given to Ukraine
The UK is one of the biggest individual state donors to Ukraine.
The only countries to have spent more are the United States and Germany, according to Kiel data.
But the UK contributions are much smaller than the United States.
That raises a question for the UK and other European countries; if the United States withdraws a large part of its funding to Ukraine, can other states make up the difference?
That would require a significant increase in their contributions.
Additional reporting: Thomas Spencer and Tamara Kovacevic
