The overall takeaway from Zelensky's meeting with Trump on Friday was perhaps best captured in an editorial from Kyiv Independent titled "A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn't Zelensky." The opening line says it all: "It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war." As David Frum said, "It exposed in the most undeniable, unequivocal way possible the pro-Putin commitments of the president and vice president." We now live in a country where the leadership supports Russia over Ukraine.
In order to understand the context of what happened, I decided that it would be helpful to watch the entire meeting. It lasted about 50 minutes, with all of the social media clips coming during the last 10 minutes. The first 40 minutes were fairly amiable. While Trump emphasized that the deal he wanted to sign would give the U.S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals, Zelensky pointed to three things Ukraine wanted in exchange:
- On-going air defense systems
- Security guarantees
- A return of the Ukrainian children that Russia has abducted
The U.S. president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine's war with Russia, said on Monday he wanted Ukraine to supply the U.S. with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.
"If we are talking about a deal, then let's do a deal, we are only for it," Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine's need for security guarantees from its allies as part of any settlement...
Ukraine has rapidly retuned its foreign policy approach to align with the transactional world view set out by the new occupant of the White House, Ukraine's most important ally.
In other words, Zelensky was smart enough to put these mineral rights on the table - knowing that it is exactly the kind of thing that would appeal to Trump. But he wanted something in return - security guarantees.
After about 40 unremarkable minutes of the meeting on Friday, Trump indicated that they would take one last question from the media. That's when Vance interrupted to say that for four years Biden talked tough about Putin, who then invaded Ukraine - implying that Russia's invasion was Biden's fault. The vice president went on to suggest that it was time for diplomacy.
Zelensky responded by asking Vance, "what kind of diplomacy?" He pointed out that Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. After being elected president in 2019, Zelensky engaged directly with Putin in diplomacy and reached a cease fire agreement - which Russia failed to honor. That is why Zelensky is so adamant about including security guarantees as part of any cease fire deal.
Vance went on the attack against Zelensky - and was eventually joined by Trump.
.@VP: "Do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?"@POTUS: "You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards ... You're… pic.twitter.com/iTYyAmfuCJ
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 28, 2025
After spouting Russian propaganda, Vance accused Zelensky of coming into the oval office and attacking the Trump administration. Nowhere during the entire exchange had Zelensky done that. But it was enough to enrage Trump - who has no love lost for Zelensky.
The rest of the discussion was basically Trump and Vance demanding that Zelensky submit to their dominance ("you don't have the cards right now") and be grateful ("have you said 'thank you' once today?"). Anyone who has ever lived with an abusive spouse will recognize those kinds of messages as threats.
A lot of people I admire are suggesting that this whole thing was choreographed to give Trump a reason to end all U.S. support for Ukraine. They might be right, but I'm a bit skeptical for a couple of reasons.
The first is that, if you watch the first 40 minutes of the meeting, you'll see Trump practically salivating at the prospect of getting control of those rare earth minerals. In addition, the president praised himself over and over again for being the great peacemaker who was going to bring an end to the war. But all of that is now off the table.
The one who seemed to have planned an attack is Vance. It came out of nowhere and was particularly vicious. It was also calibrated to raise Trump's hackles and get him engaged - which is, of course - easy to do.
It could be that Trump directed Vance to upend the entire deal. But I don't give the president that much credit. My take leans more in the direction of thinking that it was Vance who staged the whole thing himself. To be honest, I don't really know why. Perhaps, as James Landale suggests, he's "developing a role as a political brawler for Trump," specializing in going after our allies - as he did in Munich.
But I also suspect that Vance is aware of the fact that a shinny object like mineral rights is exactly the kind of thing that could distract Trump from the goal of upending the entire global order. The vice president just made sure that won't happen.
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