Trump went on to say Putin wanted to make a deal, “and he doesn’t have to make a deal because if he wanted, he’d get the whole country”.
The US president expressed his frustration with Zelensky just as his envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, emerged from what he described as “extensive and positive discussions” with Zelensky and Ukrainian officials in Kyiv.
Kellogg broke with Trump to praise Zelensky as “the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war”, while Zelensky characterised the meeting as “one that restores hope”.
Indicating his openness to a deal that would involve the US accessing Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in exchange for military and financial aid, Zelensky said security and the economy must always go hand-in-hand.
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“The details of these agreements matter – the better they are structured, the greater the results,” he said on X.
Meanwhile, Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Waltz – who was part of the US delegation to the talks in Saudi Arabia – told a summit in Washington, Zelensky will agree to give the US access to rare earth minerals.
“Here’s the bottom line: President Zelensky is going to sign that deal. You will see that in the very short term,” Waltz said at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Defending Trump’s discussions with Putin, he said: “You can’t end a war if you don’t talk to both sides.”
Those remarks echoed a more fulsome explanation of the administration’s position laid out on social media by Vice President J.D. Vance and in an interview by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“I think President Trump is very upset at President Zelensky and rightfully so. Joe Biden had frustrations with Zelensky, people shouldn’t forget it,” Rubio said in a Fox News interview, referring to reports Biden snapped at the Ukrainian leader over a lack of gratitude for US support in 2022.
Rubio accused Zelensky of misrepresenting the outcome of a meeting in which Rubio said Zelensky indicated support for a deal on rare earth minerals and pledged to seek parliamentary approval.
The US was pursuing the minerals “not because we’re trying to steal from your country” but because it would cement a security guarantee and repay American taxpayers for nearly $US200 billion ($314 billion) in assistance, Rubio said.
“We’re trying to help these guys. It’s not that we don’t care about Ukraine, but Ukraine is on another continent. We care about it because it has implications for our allies and ultimately for the world. There should be some level of gratitude.”
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