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Nobody has ever seen anything like it: a shouting match inside the Oval Office, as cameras rolled, with the American president berating a beleaguered war ally the way a Mafia don shakes down a debtor for kissing the ring with insufficient ardor. Then the scheduled discussion over lunch between the two men and their teams gets canceled, as does a more formal joint press conference afterward. A treaty, which had been prepared for the occasion, is taken away unsigned. The ally is escorted out of the building. As the dust settles, the don’s continued support for the ally is left in doubt, along with the ally’s very existence. And the subsequent shape of global politics is suddenly a foggy swirl.
The debtor was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had come to the White House on Friday to sign an accord—which President Donald Trump had demanded—to hand over his country’s minerals and other resources to the United States, in payment for the aid that the U.S. has sent Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion three years ago. The treaty and the meeting had been seen as a way for the two leaders to patch a long-turbulent relationship, so that Trump could see a way to renewing U.S. military aid and so that he might pursue a peace accord—which he had recently begun with Russian President Vladmir Putin—in a way that didn’t push Ukraine under the bus.
Before cameras, reporters, and officials on both sides, the two presidents sat in the room visibly tense. Then Vice President J.D. Vance, sitting nearby, spoke up, slamming Zelensky for disrespecting the president of the United States, asking, “Have you said ‘thank you’ one time in this meeting?” This triggered Trump, who started yelling at his visitor. “You’re not in a very good position!” Trump bellowed. “You have a lousy set of cards!”
Zelensky talked back, at first politely, explaining the course of the war, noting that he had signed ceasefire agreements with Putin but that Putin had broken them, suggesting that the Russian leader might break a deal with Trump as well.
Trump took great offense at that. The Russians, he said, “broke it with Biden because they didn’t respect him. They respect me.” He then went on a tear, repeating his complaints about the “Russia hoax,” saying that Putin suffered under it as well, then yelling to Zelensky, “You’re not being thankful, and that’s not a nice thing.”
Before the group retired into a conference room, Trump said, “This is going to be great television, I’ll say that.” This led some TV news commentators to wonder if the display was theatrical and if the two presidents would emerge having reached some settlement on the issues. But it was not to be.
In fact, CNN reported later, Trump and Zelensky went into different rooms. They didn’t exchange a single word. Instead, Trump told his aides to tell Zelensky that he and his entourage—various Ukrainian officials, including the country’s ambassador (who could be seen holding her head in her hands during the shouting match)—needed to leave. Not long after, Trump issued the following statement on social media:
We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.
How did this happen? Did Vance, who dislikes Zelensky at least as much as Trump does and cares at least as little about what happens to Ukraine, prod Trump into his tantrum by pointing out that Zelensky hadn’t been thankful? Or was this an ambush: Did Trump and Vance write the script ahead of time?
In a way, it doesn’t matter, except perhaps as an indicator of who runs whom in this White House. The bigger question is: What happens next?
It is hard to imagine Trump reconciling with Zelensky after this confrontation, which by now has been watched by millions worldwide. He has long disliked Zelensky; their phone call—in which Trump threatened to withhold delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles until the Ukrainian president dug up dirt on Joe Biden, triggered Trump’s first impeachment. And now Zelensky has talked back to him—has disrespected him in public—and Trump regards that as the unforgivable sin.
Meanwhile, Trump believes—and repeated as much during this meeting—that Putin is ready for peace and will abide by any agreement that the two of them make. Many had feared when the peace talks began earlier this month, without Ukrainian participation, that Trump and Putin would impose a peace on Ukraine, leaving Putin controlling much of the land that his troops occupy and in a prime position to launch a new offensive sometime in the future.
The Trump-Zelensky blow-up was preceded, in recent days, by Oval Office visits by French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who both behaved very respectfully (Starmer even brought with him an invitation by King Charles for a state dinner) and gently pressed Trump to continue U.S. support for Ukraine.
It is likely that Macron, Starmer, and perhaps others will try to mend things between the American and Ukrainian presidents, but also likely to little avail. Right after his expulsion from the White House, Zelensky flew to London for a summit with European leaders, arranged by Starmer well ahead of the disastrous meeting.
Though several European nations have contributed a great deal to Ukraine’s defense, U.S. assistance—in weapons, training, and intelligence—is necessary for its troops to continue staving off the Russian invaders. The explosive rift in the Oval Office may prod the European leaders to step up their support for Kyiv.
The rift comes in the aftermath of several incidents that sparked Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s conservative Christian Democrat party and very likely the country’s next chancellor, to say that Europe has to build up its own independent defense because the United States is no longer a reliable guarantor of the continent’s security. The ghastly display in the Oval Office may intensify this sense and accelerate the Europeans’ movement away from their 75-year-old trans-Atlantic alliance—though this is a delicate matter because, as several German defense analysts told me, it will take as long as a decade for Europe to build an independent defense.
Congressional Republicans are split on the issue of Ukraine. The most avid Trump loyalists are opposed to spending much more money on the war—and, in fact, have sympathy for Moscow. GOP traditionalists advocate more support, seeing Ukraine’s survival as crucial not as a goal for its own sake but also as a way to deter Russia from expanding further into Europe and, possibly, to deter China from threatening Taiwan.
It is likely that some of the traditionalists—and perhaps some of Trump’s own advisers—were appalled by what happened in the Oval Office. It is less clear whether they will say so, even in private.
The tragedy of this diplomatic disaster is that the meeting, with its treaty signing, had been shaping up to be a success. U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators had softened or deleted some of the treaty’s most crippling clauses. For instance, the deal’s first draft demanded that Ukraine give the United States 100 percent of revenue from its resources up to $500 billion. The final draft had the two countries forming a joint venture fund that would split the revenue, with no precise figure cited.
Even in its final form, the treaty did not include a U.S. security guarantee, which Zelensky had said was necessary. But it did refer to America’s desire to invest “in a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine.” It also said that the U.S. “supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees,” in order to “establish lasting peace” and “to protect mutual investments.”
Before Friday, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, had said the presence of U.S. engineers and miners on Ukrainian territory would itself deter Russian aggression. A case could also be made (though he didn’t make it explicitly) that few, if any, private companies would invest in such an enterprise—a prolonged, costly, and risky business—without some security guarantee.
In any case, it’s possible that the minerals treaty was always a bit of symbolic theater. An article in the Washington Post quotes geologists as saying that it would take years, possibly a decade or more, to excavate Ukrainian minerals, and that nobody really knows how much those minerals and other resources are worth. Current estimates are based on Soviet-era surveys, which may or may not be reliable.
Moreover, maps published by the Independent show that more than half of Ukraine’s rich resources are buried in parts of the country that Russian troops now occupy—mainly in the eastern Donbas region and in Crimea. Before Western companies could start excavating in those areas, Russian troops would have to leave. Putin has shown no inclination to do so.
Which leads to a larger question still. Whether or not Putin abides by a peace treaty, as Trump believes and as Zelensky doubts, it is not at all clear that he’s willing to sign one that has any meaning. This makes the break-up of Friday’s meeting more tragic still. If Trump and Zelensky had signed the minerals treaty, and if Putin refused to pull his troops out of the Donbas region, thereby making American investments impossible, Trump—angered by what he would see as a betrayal—might have turned against Putin.
But that was the sort of scenario possibly worth weaving before Feb. 28. Now it has unraveled. What else might unravel—in Ukraine, in Europe, and in much of the rest of the world—is a question as full of dread and uncertainty as any we have faced for many decades.
