It wasn’t exactly a negotiation when President Donald Trump and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky met at the White House, it was more like a “here’s how it is” meeting.
The meeting, also attended by Finnish President Alexander Stubb, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was all about giving all parties a reality check, not a bite at the apple.
Many read the 180-degree shift in tone from their disastrous Oval Office session six months ago as a big breakthrough in relations between Trump and Zelensky – it wasn’t.
Zelensky abandoning his t-shirt and fatigues for something resembling a suit and his multiple “thank yous” to Trump wasn’t a “breakthrough” it was Zelensky recognizing that’s how it has to be in dealing with President Trump.
Same with Trump’s seeming abandonment of his earlier demand for a ceasefire. As several of his European counterparts said that hostilities must stop immediately, Trump replied, “I don’t think you need a cease-fire,” noting that his negotiations to end the decades-long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others, had taken place without one. “I know that it might be good to have. But I can also understand, strategically, why one country or the other wouldn’t want it.”
Later, he said that “all of us would obviously prefer an immediate cease-fire,” but that Putin and Zelensky would have to work it out themselves. “As of this moment, it’s not happening,” reported the New York Times.
NATO admission for Ukraine appears to have been ruled out. Instead, now Trump has to hold Putin to his promise that “the security of Ukraine should be ensured as well” as both sides figure out how to balance strategic forces in Europe to both Washington and Moscow’s satisfaction. That’s another “here’s how it is” moment for both Putin and Zelensky.
In another reality check, Putin said the war would have been avoided if Trump had been reelected in 2020: “when President Trump is saying that if he was the president back then, there would be no war, and I'm quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that.”
Weakness is provocative, observed our friend Robert Romano, Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government, and former President Joe Biden — who oversaw Ukraine policy under the presidency of Barack Obama including the overthrow of Yanukovych — was unable to deter Russian aggression in neither 2014 nor 2022. The Obama-Biden policies didn’t work and won’t work to eject Russia from Ukraine; the reality is if there’s going to be peace – under any conditions – it is up to Donald Trump to broker it.
Finally, there is the matter of territory – who occupies it and who gets to keep it.
Putin says he won’t withdraw from Ukraine unless Russia gets the Donbas, an industrial region he has claimed since 2014. It’s the focus of Russia’s summer offensive and Russia now occupies most of it. It is also crucial to Ukraine’s future economic viability, but the reality is Ukraine has no ability to eject the Russians from Donbas with anything short of direct American and NATO involvement.
And Trump made it clear there will be no American “boots on the ground” as part of future military operations or security guarantees for the Ukrainians – no negotiation, just a flat, “this is how it is.”
There’s a lot of anticipation about what happens next – a one on one between Putin and Zelensky or a trilateral meeting brokered by Trump – but no one can really say if or when these next meetings will take place. But one thing is for sure, a “this is how it is” meeting, like Monday’s White House meeting, was a necessary precursor to any peace deal.
George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for former Representative Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry formerly a member of the House Intelligence Committee and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
- Donald Trump
- Trump Zelensky meeting
- Vladimir Putin
- Alaska Summit Meeting
- Finnish President Alexander Stubb
- French President Emmanuel Macron
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
- Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
- United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer
- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
- NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte
- Joe Biden foreign policy
- Ukraine territory
- Donbas region
- Security guarantees
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