US defense contractors including Lockheed Martin Corp. have every interest to let Ukraine manufacture Patriot missile interceptors after President Donald Trump pledged the US would grant a license for the weapons system, a senior Republican lawmaker said.
“I think it’s in their best interest to do so for many factors,” Representative Michael McCaul, a House Foreign Affairs Committee member from Texas, said Saturday on Bloomberg This Weekend when asked whether Lockheed would license the technology. “If the president wants this done, it’s in their best interest to comply with that.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long pleaded with the US and other allies to supply more interceptors to fend off Russian ballistic missile attacks that have devastated targets, including cities, during more than four years of full-scale war.
Trump told Zelenskyy during a meeting at a NATO summit this week that the US will be “giving a license to you” to make Patriots, which also includes technology from RTX Corp.’s Raytheon unit.
McCaul was interviewed while in Ukraine, where he said Ukrainian military officials briefed him on home-grown drone technology and their forces’ advances in retaking Russian-occupied territory.
“I think Ukrainians can build this thing faster, and maybe even better,” he said, referring to Patriots. “So Lockheed could learn something from the Ukrainians about their own interceptors — how to improve them, how to manufacture them more quickly.”