Yesterday’s meeting with Zelensky in the White House was as disgraceful as it was inevitable. It descended at the end into a bullying rant with JD Vance first sparking then joining in and egging Trump on in front of the world's press, but this row was always going to happen. With Trump, a self-proclaimed admirer of Putin and dictators around the world, this was always coming. The previous meetings between Trump and European leaders were simply putting off the moment when someone finally confronted him with the truth. Zelensky won't sign the minerals deals without a US security guarantee. It will go down in the annals of American history as the most shameful event ever. You can always charm a bully, provided you give him what he wants but refuse and this is what you get.
Macron and Starmer offered Trump flattery and warm words, without getting anything in return but Zelensky didn’t have that option. He represents forty million Ukrainians and needed clarity. Well, he and Europe certainly got that. NATO is effectively dead and the US is firmly allied with Russia now and will continue to be so, at least until Trump is out of the White House.
Ukraine has endured and is still enduring the most horrendous assault by barbaric Russian hordes sent by an indicted war criminal, the deaths of thousands of its fighters and civilians, and the wholesale destruction of its eastern towns and cities. Through it all Zelensky has remained in Ukraine even though he could have left for safety in the West at any time. By any measure, he’s a hero, a truly Churchillian figure, who will almost certainly have statues erected in his honour at some point.
What the heated argument finally revealed is just how far US foreign policy has shifted in the last few weeks under Trump. America has abandoned its traditional allies, and essentially it now has none. The US administration is a Kremlin-controlled crime family answerable only to Trump, and through him, Putin. The values that the West was able to rely on for the last century are no more. It is all transactional from now on.
For US diplomacy around the world, it was an absolute catastrophe.
Imagine if Putin had been invited to the White House and not Zelensky. He is after all, the other party in the conflict and Trump could easily have asked him instead. Does anyone believe JD Vance would have piped up? Or that Trump would have done anything other than give Uriah Heap impressions? I think we all know the answer to that.
The row concerns US security guarantees and is utterly irrational anyway. Trump has repeatedly claimed his ceasefire ‘deal’ with Putin would hold (this is despite Zelensky telling him Putin had broken umpteen ceasefire agreements before). If he truly believed what he was saying, what would it cost the USA to offer a security pledge? Nothing, zero. They would never have to send in troops. Where's the problem?
Yet he would not offer a guarantee, and this is why Zelensky wouldn’t sign the minerals deal. Some critics think Trump set the original cost of the deal so impossibly high at $500 billion, that Zelensky would be forced to reject it and this would provide the excuse he needed to stop supplying arms and funds to Ukraine. We shall see what happens on that.
The self-titled great negotiator, author of The Art Of The Deal, has already given away his strongest negotiating points (conceding territory, Ukraine being refused NATO membership) before the negotiations even start. Yesterday he told Russia, via the media that Zelensky "has no cards" thus giving away yet another card! It was crazy. Trump also accused Zelensky of "gambling with WW3" which simply signaled to Putin that the West think his threats of nuclear annihilation are serious. This is really stupid. America had the strongest hand by far but Trump has given away all the cards.
His tweet afterward that Zelensky “wasn’t ready for peace” was the ultimate insult for the victim of Russian aggression. Putin, who could have declared peace at any time during the last thousand days or more, wasn’t asked if he was “ready for peace” as he carried on raining missiles on Ukrainian cities
The POTUS is supposed to be the leader of the free world but it was Zelensky who looked more like it yesterday. He’s the only man able to stand up to Putin and Trump.
Trump and Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful and of disrespecting the Oval Office. If anyone was disrespectful to the office, it was them. They were essentially trying to strong-arm him into signing a deal stacked against Ukraine which would see Kyiv paying well over the odds and they wanted Zelensky to thank THEM for extorting him! Bear in mind that at no time in the 250-year history of the USA have they demanded money (with menaces) from an ally for military aid in defending freedom and democracy.
Vance even suggested that when Zelensky invites world leaders to Ukraine it is for a "propaganda tour." It was a disgusting thing to say, but not out of the ordinary for Vance who is proving to be the worst VP in history.
Trump claims he isn't aligned with anybody in the conflict, which given Russia was the clear aggressor, is utterly ridiculous. But he's perfectly happy to insult Zelensky, accusing him of being a dictator, and demand concessions from him while never breathing a word of criticism of Putin for his brutal invasion or giving the slightest hint of ever asking him to make any compromise whatsoever. He’s a bully who can only attack those weaker than himself.
It was notable that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was quite impassive through the entire exchange. President Trump never asked him to comment although this whole issue is his sphere. I wouldn’t be shocked if Rubio quit, if he doesn’t it would simply confirm he is a sycophant and a coward. The same for Mike Waltz, Trump’s National Security Adviser, who was also in the meeting. Waltz has been supportive of Ukraine in the past and can’t have thought any of it was good for the USA’s reputation abroad.
Zelensky was forced to explain once again to Trump that America has NOT given more aid to Ukraine and Europe has NOT provided aid in the form of repayable loans. He became the third world leader in a week to correct the President of the United States, but Trump just ignored them all.
He kept up the usual barrage of nonsense that the war wouldn’t have happened had he been president, that he was tough whereas Biden was weak and even that he had won the last election “by a lot” as if that was relevant to anything. He also dragged in Hunter Biden's laptop!!!
You can watch the whole 50-minute long disaster HERE. The last ten minutes is the key moment.
Europe has to face the truth. The USA and Russia are now one entity as far as foreign policy is concerned. But if they act swiftly, boldly, and decisively they could outflank the Americans, isolate Trump and produce a better deal, one that will take longer but could ultimately restore Ukraine's territorial integrity.
They first need to ensure they can still buy weapons and ammunition from America. If Trump refuses to sell, we will know for sure it was never about money and he is genuinely Putin's poodle. This will be crucial.
European leaders quickly offered their support for Zelensky as this report in The Washington Post makes clear, showing the growing gulf between Europe and the USA. Friedrich Merz, the soon-to-be German Chancellor tweeted that we "must never confuse the aggressor with the victim."
It's an amazing statement to be made about US leadership, but this is where we are.
