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\u2019s war against his country in doubt. Zelenskyy \u201ccan come back when he is ready for Peace,\u201d Trump wrote in a social media post. Where does the blow-up leave US-Ukraine relations? What does Moscow make of all this? What\u2019s the way forward for Europe? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No deal\u2014for now<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe problem with the Oval Office blow-up is not the lack of decorum,\u201d Dan tells us. \u201cThe problem is that there seems to be no US national interest advanced by a rupture with Ukraine\u201d and \u201clittle consistency\u201d in US positions on the minerals deal, support for Ukraine, and European contributions to the defense of Ukraine and Europe as a whole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless of who\u2019s to blame for the blow-up, Leslie advises a quick apology from Zelenskyy and a media tour \u201cfocused on changing hearts and minds\u201d with a variety of conservative outlets, including the New York Post and Washington Examiner. But Leslie says Zelenskyy\u2019s refusal to directly apologize to Trump in a Friday evening Fox News interview \u201cmakes restoring his relationship with Trump much harder.\u201d Leslie adds that Zelenskyy should still try to revive the minerals deal, in part because it \u201cfurther incentivizes US support for Ukraine,\u201d given that the United States \u201ccan\u2019t access the minerals until Ukraine is free from war and from further Russian aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019s war against his country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/01dc-trump-showdown-tjfc-articleLarge.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13016,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015\/revisions\/13016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Friday\u2019s meeting was meant to cement a deal over US access to Ukraine\u2019s minerals, with proceeds contributing to Ukraine\u2019s reconstruction. But a nearly hour-long Oval Office media availability devolved into an argument over Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s history of breaking deals and whether Zelenskyy was being respectful and thankful enough to his hosts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n