Asked about sanctions, and about the weapons at Büchel
the podium · Press gaggle, the Roosevelt Room · 27 January 2026, 15:10
Q: The European Union has sanctioned the United States. First time in history.
A: First time in history. They should put that on a plaque. Hungary wouldn't sign it. One country in twenty-seven still remembers who paid for the last eighty years.
Q: Mr President, the Secretary General of NATO has asked you for a written assurance on the nuclear weapons at Büchel. Will you give it?
A: I've seen a lot of letters this week.
Q: Will you give the assurance?
A: Those weapons are American property. They're in American vaults with American locks and American airmen standing on them. Nobody needs a letter from me to understand who they belong to.
Q: That's not what he asked for. He asked for consultation before you move them.
A: Next question.
closed channel
The letter had arrived the evening before, and it asked for one page conceding consultation — not custody, not security, not a change in who held the weapons. No reply was drafted. Two days later German, Dutch and Belgian military police sealed all three airfields, exactly as the letter said they would.
Same day
forum
basebrats
27 Jan 2026 08:40
Not political. I do not know what any of this means and I am getting nothing from the base. Card did not work at the commissary. Two aircraft that were supposed to take his section out on Monday are still sitting there. Somebody said it is …
wire
wire record
27 Jan 2026 13:30
Ports, insurance, payments, designations. Hungary abstains and refuses to implement. Estonia records that the package "measures the rope while the arson is at the door."
microblog
@jkovacs_pol · reporter
27 Jan 2026 13:40
Adopted. The European Union has imposed sanctions on the United States of America. Ports, insurance, payments, and a designation list on 2 February. Hungary abstained, which does not block, and has announced it will not implement. Four hours over the scheduled…
microblog
@jkovacs_pol · reporter
27 Jan 2026 13:52
What was rejected matters as much. A general ban on US military aircraft and vessels using any EU infrastructure was dropped — Berlin and Paris said it would be "a blockade, drafted and signed." Naming US officials individually was set aside and "held in reser…
microblog
@jkovacs_pol · reporter
27 Jan 2026 14:05
Estonia's minority statement, in full, because it is the best sentence anyone has produced this month: "The package as adopted measures the rope while the arson is at the door."
microblog
@siobhan_cork · civilian
27 Jan 2026 15:00
Genuine question for anyone who knows: what happens to ordinary things? I have a US pension from eight years in Boston. My sister banks with an American bank here. Is any of that in this, or is it only governments? Nobody in the coverage says and everyone I as…
microblog
@POTUS · state
27 Jan 2026 15:10
Those weapons are American property, in American vaults, with American locks. Nobody needs a letter from me to understand who they belong to.
microblog
@hull_and_wake · osint
27 Jan 2026 15:30
The port ban is retrospective and follows the vessel, not the voyage. Any hull that has called at US-controlled Greenland since 19 Jan is barred from every EU port, permanently. Charter desks were declining US government business within ninety minutes. Not bec…