Trump does not see the need for Zelensky's presence in negotiations with Russia

WashingtonIn a new verbal escalation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his US counterpart Donald Trump has said that he does not believe his presence is necessary in negotiations with Russia. "He has been in meetings for three years and nothing has been achieved. So, honestly, I don't think it's very important to be in meetings. It makes it very difficult to close deals," he said on Friday during an interview on FOX radio. He added that Zelensky "has no cards" to negotiate with.

He also criticized French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer before meeting them next week in Washington. "You know they haven't done anything. And, you know, [Macron] is a friend of mine, and I met the prime minister, and you know, he's a very nice guy, but nobody has done anything," said the Republican. Instead, he spoke more kindly of Russia's Vladimir Putin than he has of old European partners: "He wants to make a deal, but he doesn't have to, because if he wanted to, he would get the whole country." Trump has once again given Putin another comment that further strengthens Moscow's position in the negotiations.

Trump is no longer hiding his intentions: to end the war in Ukraine and get rid of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, if necessary. The US president is not only in a hurry to close a flank that he considers to be draining his energy in the competition with China, but he has also set his sights on the country's rare earths. In the midst of the technological race against the Asian giant, and in the midst of a trade war, the minerals that Ukraine has are extremely valuable to the American president. Especially after China banned the export to the United States of key minerals for the production of chips and semiconductors last year.

Ukraine turns out to be a real "treasure trove" when it comes to critical minerals such as lithium. Before the Russian invasion broke out in 2022, during a meeting of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (EEC) it was noted that approximately 5% of all "critical raw materials" in the world were located in Ukraine. In fact, Trump himself had already located the country on the map long before the war began. In March 2014, two years before Trump became president of the United States, the tycoon praised the Russian incursion into Crimea in February 2014 and assured: "It is an area with a lot of wealth." He also made reference to an informal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The image of bilateral negotiations between Washington and Moscow, with no place at the table for Kiev, has concentrated all the attention of a European Union in crisis due to its exclusion from the peace process. Trump has not stopped making noise with concessions to Russian objectives: that Ukraine will not be able to recover the borders prior to 2014, that elections must be held, that the country cannot be part of NATO (although the Alliance assured that accession had become a reality). in "irreversible") and the latest, the attack on Zelensky, calling him a “dictator.” While Trump was making incendiary headlines every time he opened his mouth, Washington was also putting pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal on rare earths.

The first representative of the Trump administration to set foot in Ukraine was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. On February 12, he met with Zelensky to hand him a draft contract under which Ukrainian and American companies will exploit minerals critical to the technology industry for the benefit of the United States. Since then, Zelensky has been under constant pressure from what has until now been his main economic and military ally to accept a deal that does not explain what kind of aid the Ukrainian army would receive in exchange for rare earths.

A week after the proposal was presented and Ukraine was reluctant to accept it, the pressures have been joined by distrust over Washington's rapprochement with Moscow, and all of this has come to the surface in a post from Truth Social. "Dictator" and "if he doesn't act quickly, he will be left without a country", Trump said against Zelensky after the Ukrainian president complained of having been excluded from the negotiations and accused him of living "trapped in a bubble of Russian disinformation."

A "solid" agreement

This Thursday, Zelensky tried to lower the tone with Trump after meeting with the special US envoy, Keith Kellogg. The Ukrainian has assured that he is willing to "reach a solid and truly beneficial agreement" with his American counterpart on issues of "security and investments." "I thank the United States for all the assistance and bipartisan support it has provided to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people," Zelensky said in his statement. "Success unites," he continued, in a more conciliatory tone: "Everyone needs to be successful in relations with the United States."

Beyond de-escalating the verbal tension, Kellogg has traveled to Kiev to resume the work that Bessent had started on February 12: the draft on the exploitation of Ukrainian rare earth elements, which Zelensky had shown reluctance to discuss. After the threats and exclusion from the negotiating table of Riyadh, it seems that the Ukrainian president has shown himself more willing to close the agreement. But without agreeing to give up 50% of these minerals. The Ukrainian president aims to get Washington to commit to providing security guarantees that will prevent a future new Russian aggression.

Trump wants to close a simple agreement now to speed up the process and discuss its details later, according to Reuters. The president's men are no longer hiding from the link between the Republican's verbal escalation and his haste to keep the exploitation of Ukrainian rare earths. This Thursday, the National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, spoke thus about the message they want to convey to Kiev: "They have to moderate themselves, analyze it carefully and sign the agreement."

Zelensky, accustomed to dodging Trump

This is not the first time that Zelensky has come under pressure from Trump. During his first term in office, he had to navigate calls from the American president, who insisted that he work with his then lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, on an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The Wall Street Journal Trump said he repeated the proposal to Zelensky up to eight times in that July 25 phone call. Heading into the 2020 election campaign, Trump had already hinted that he wanted Ukraine to investigate any conflict between Biden's diplomatic efforts there and his son's relationship with a Ukrainian oligarch who owns a gas company.

During Trump's first term, the United States was already sending aid to Ukraine after Russia took control of Crimea in 2014 and supported the armed insurgency in the east of the country. The US president's pressure on Zelensky coincided with the freezing of an aid package for Ukraine. The Ukrainian leader experienced a déjà vu when Trump instigated a congressional blockade on a crucial military and economic shipment to Kiev last year.

The United States suspended aid to Ukraine in early July 2020. The call to pressure Zelensky to cooperate in the investigation into Biden was on July 25. Kiev did not learn that the aid had been suspended until August. The US Congress launched an investigation into Trump to find out if he had really been withholding aid in Ukraine to pressure the country to open an investigation into Biden and his son. The controversy erupted after suspicions of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, in which Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In the days following the scandal, Trump still denied the pressure, although he acknowledged that the call with Zelensky existed. For his part, the Ukrainian ended up denying the pressure when he met the Republican at the UN General Assembly in September of that same year.