Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy entered the White House today hoping to sign a deal with President Donald Trump on Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as part of efforts to keep the U.S. invested in Ukraine’s future as it contemplates making a peace deal with Russia. What Zelenskyy got instead was a rhetorical buzz saw from Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The planned signing of the deal was scrapped, the joint press conference was canceled, and Zelenskyy was told by Trump’s staff to leave the building.
All had been going reasonably smoothly until Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy began shouting at each other at the end of the meeting. Trump blamed Zelenskyy for flouting peace efforts that he’s trying to broker between Moscow and Kyiv and for not thanking the American people for the tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military support to date. Zelenskyy emphasized that past ceasefires with Russia were meaningless and noted that he had repeatedly thanked Americans for their support.
Trump clearly didn’t appreciate the pushback. “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out,” he flatly declared to the Ukrainian president. He told Zelenskyy to come back when he was prepared to seriously engage in a peace agreement with Russia.
One can take issue with Trump’s tactics. While litigating the entire war effort in front of the U.S. press and angrily jabbing his finger in front of Zelenskyy’s face may have made for entertaining television, it wasn’t productive from the standpoint of trying to come to a common position to present to Russia.
Read article in U.S. News & World Report
Author
Daniel
DePetris
Fellow
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