Ending Ukraine's aid shows Trump is no ally to the West

Donald Trump said he was going to do it. His foreign policy and his defence team gave due warning that they’d do it. And yet, as Marco Rubio smashed a fist into the solar plexus of an already battered Ukraine, there was still a stunned surprise.

- SAM KILEY

In a memo sent to embassies and agencies who rely on US funding, to the tune of $72bn (£57bn) at last count, the new US secretary of state placed a stop order on American worldwide aid funding, for up to 90 days. Excluded from this move are Israel and Egypt. They’re fine.

Ukraine is a democracy that has been identified by the highest court on the planet, the International Criminal Court, as being the victim of war crimes. But aid from the US, both civilian and military, appears to have been cut overnight with the stroke of a pen. As the memo was being digested around the world, one aid agency head was quoted by the Reuters news agency as calling it “lunacy”.