How US Profited From Ukraine War As Trump Punished India Over Russian Trade

While US President Donald Trump imposed 50 per cent tariffs on most Indian imports, making good on a threat to punish one of the world's largest economies over its Russian crude trade, a new report revealed that the United States itself has benefited enormously from the conflict in Ukraine. According to the think tank, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), America's military-industrial network has seen an "explosive" growth since the war in Ukraine started, with Washington supplying 45 per cent of Kyiv's total arms purchases. 

"Global defence spending increased by 9.4 per cent to $2.72 trillion in 2024, marking the steepest annual rise since the end of the Cold War, driven largely by the Ukraine conflict....In the Ukraine conflict, the US has sought to leverage its defence-industrial base (DIB) to support the war effort by providing Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) with domestically produced weapons, munitions, and other military hardware, while replenishing US and allied stockpiles," the report said. 

If the findings of the report are any indication, the profits that started coming in Joe Biden's administration continued rolling in during Trump's tenure. Between 2020 and 2024, Ukraine became the world's largest arms importer, accounting for 8.8 per cent of global imports, up from just 0.1 per cent in 2015-19--  a 9,627 per cent surge. During this time, the US supplied 45 per cent of Ukraine's arms, constituting 9.3 per cent of America's total arms exports during this period.

In 2023 and 2024, Ukraine ranked as the top global arms importer. The report found that from 2024 onward, and increasingly in 2025, the US began shifting supplies from direct aid to sales. 

"In August 2025, the US approved a $825 million sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM) missiles with associated equipment to Ukraine. Funding for these sales comes from NATO allies (Denmark, Norway, Netherlands) and US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programmes, which are loan/grant mechanisms that may involve repayment but are sales," it said.

In a notable display of strategic leverage, the US administration persuaded European NATO states and Canada to purchase over $10 billion in American arms, either to replenish stockpiles for Ukraine or for direct transfers under the NATO Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative. 

The agreement, closed at the July 14, 2025, meeting between NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Trump, requires participating states to fund tranches, or "packages", of about $500 million each. At the time of writing, nearly $2 billion has been committed via this route.

On 4 August, the first package of artillery and ammunition, valued at more than $500 million-was announced, funded by the Netherlands. On 5 August, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden jointly pledged $500 million for equipment and munitions. On 13 August, Germany announced it would fund a $500-million PURL package, and on 24 August, Canada announced funding for a $500-million PURL package for Ukraine.

Further, at the 2025 NATO Summit at The Hague, member states committed to raising annual defence and security spending to 5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2035. 

"This represents a 150 per cent jump from the 2 per cent target first agreed by NATO Defence Ministers in 2006 and reaffirmed by Heads of State and Government in 2014 after the Crimea crisis...The US accounted for 64 per cent of NATO allies' arms imports in 2020-24, up from 52 per cent in 2015-19, largely driven by the Ukraine crisis," the report said.

It was also found that the American share of global arms exports saw a 21 per cent rise from 35 per cent in 2014-19 to 43 per cent in 2020-24. 

"In 2024, the total value of transferred defence articles, services, and security cooperation activities under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system was $117.9 billion, a 45.7 per cent increase from $80.9 billion in 2023. Direct commercial sales in the same period rose to $200.8 billion from $157.5 billion, marking a 27.6 per cent increase. Within the US defence industrial base of more than 100,000 companies, five prime contractors - Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing - secured over one-third of all Pentagon contracts," the report added.