Instead of long-range Tomahawk missiles, Witkoff advised Ukraine to ask Trump to lift tariffs for 10 years

In October 2025, the special envoy of the US leader Steve Witkoff called on Ukrainian officials to ask Donald Trump about canceling tariffs in exchange for providing long-range Tomahawk missiles. His words were quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

That month, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy flew to Washington, hoping to receive American Tomahawk cruise missiles – the Ukrainian military wanted to disable oil refineries, forcing Moscow to negotiate on more favorable terms, the media reports.

However, the day before Zelenskyy's arrival, the American leader Donald Trump had a call with the dictator of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and decided not to offer Tomahwk to Ukraine.

Witkoff encouraged Ukrainian officials to try a different approach, saying what good could a "handful of missiles" do, the WSJ reports.

Instead, the special envoy urged Ukraine to ask Trump for a 10-year duty-free period. According to Witkoff, this would give a significant boost to the Ukrainian economy.

"I'm in the business of making deals. That's why I'm here. We keep knocking on doors and offering ideas," he explained to reporters.

• At the end of November, Bloomberg published transcripts of conversations between Wittkoff and Ushakov, an aide to the Russian dictator: during one of the calls, they discussed the upcoming conversation between Trump and Putin, after which the US president and refused to sell Tomahawk to Ukraine.