They squared off in the Oval Office. After a heated exchange with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in front of the press corps, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the White House on Friday without signing a promised minerals deal and with the future of negotiations to end Russia’s war against his country in doubt. Zelenskyy “can come back when he is ready for Peace,” Trump wrote in a social media post. Where does the blow-up leave US-Ukraine relations? What does Moscow make of all this? What’s the way forward for Europe?
No deal—for now
Friday’s meeting was meant to cement a deal over US access to Ukraine’s minerals, with proceeds contributing to Ukraine’s reconstruction. But a nearly hour-long Oval Office media availability devolved into an argument over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s history of breaking deals and whether Zelenskyy was being respectful and thankful enough to his hosts.
“The problem with the Oval Office blow-up is not the lack of decorum,” Dan tells us. “The problem is that there seems to be no US national interest advanced by a rupture with Ukraine” and “little consistency” in US positions on the minerals deal, support for Ukraine, and European contributions to the defense of Ukraine and Europe as a whole.
Regardless of who’s to blame for the blow-up, Leslie advises a quick apology from Zelenskyy and a media tour “focused on changing hearts and minds” with a variety of conservative outlets, including the New York Post and Washington Examiner. But Leslie says Zelenskyy’s refusal to directly apologize to Trump in a Friday evening Fox News interview “makes restoring his relationship with Trump much harder.”
Leslie adds that Zelenskyy should still try to revive the minerals deal, in part because it “further incentivizes US support for Ukraine,” given that the United States “can’t access the minerals until Ukraine is free from war and from further Russian aggression.”
