President Donald Trump has said he is not currently interested in revisiting or reviving the critical minerals deal with Ukraine that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had originally traveled to Washington to sign, a senior White House official told Reuters news agency.
The White House official also claimed Zelenskyy’s delegation began “begging” to sign the deal immediately after being told to leave the White House.
After leaving the Oval Office, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy said he respected the US president and the American people. Zelenskyy told Fox News it would be difficult for his country to hold off the now three-year Russian invasion without US support.
However, he said Ukraine would not enter peace talks with Russia without security guarantees to prevent a renewed Russian offensive.
Asked if he should apologize to Trump, as several US politicians have demanded, Zelenskyy said, “We have to be very open and honest. I am not sure that we did something bad.”
He described the meeting in the Oval Office as “not good for both sides” but also added he does “not want to lose” the US as a partner and that his relationship with Trump can be salvaged.
US President Donald Trump said his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy “overplayed his hand” during their heated exchange in the Oval Office, which was broadcast live.
Trump, who spoke to reporters while leaving the White House for his Florida estate, insisted “I want a ceasefire now.”
The US president said he wanted the war in Ukraine to end “immediately.” Trump also rejected new talks with Zelenskyy and accused the Ukrainian leader of opposing a truce.
Trump claimed that Zelenskyy is “looking to go on and fight, fight, fight,” while Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants to end” the war Russia started by invading Ukraine just over three years ago.
Before their discussion ended in a spat, Trump had told Zelenskyy that Ukraine would need to make “compromises” in a truce with Russia. Zelenskyy said there should be “no compromises with a killer on our territory.”
Inna Sovsun, a member of Ukrainian parliament, told DW that Ukrainians feel the way Trump treated Zelenskyy was “unfair, unjustified and unprovoked.”
Zelenskyy was at the White House to sign a minerals deal that would have marked a new chapter in the relationship between Ukraine and the United States, but the meeting devolved into a shouting match with Trump and US Vice President JD Vance berating Zelenskyy.
Following the row, Sovsun said there is a lot of “room for the European Union to step in.”
She said if European and other Western leaders only react by voicing their concerns, Ukraine would be “left to deal with the United States directly.”
But if they were to come together and offer tangible support like “a list of weapons that we can deliver to Ukrainians right now so that they can continue fighting,” she said such a move would “improve Ukraine’s negotiation position in relation with the United States.”
Going forward, Sovsun suggested that the main negotiator from Ukraine should be someone else instead of Zelenskyy.
Sovsun also called for a mediator that both sides can trust for future negotiations, naming British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as a potential figure.
