The Oval Office showdown left Putin holding a trump card in the Ukraine War
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. US President Donald Trump and his vice-president, J.D. Vance, are spinning Friday’s Oval Office clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a show of American strength towards an ungrateful supplicant.
However, their joint dressing down of Zelensky will go down in history and live in infamy as a shameful moment of American betrayal. Trump and Vance berated the leader of a nation that’s been fighting for its existence for three years. “Have you said ‘thank you’ once?" Vance asked Zelensky.
In fact, Zelensky has thanked the US, as well as Trump, several times since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war of aggression against Ukraine, and he did so again after the meeting. It’s just that Zelensky always adds that he needs even more support for his country to survive, and more security guarantees in any future peace negotiations to deter Putin. As Zelensky pointed out during the meeting, Putin has broken previous ceasefires.
That caveat was too much for Trump. “It’s going to be very hard to do business like this," he told Zelensky. “You’ve got to be more thankful," Trump continued.
“Because let me tell you, you don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards, but without us you don’t have any cards." That observation is manifestly true: Without US support, Ukraine really is desperate, even as other Western allies such as France and Britain (whose leaders also visited the Oval Office last week) increase their aid to Kyiv. That just makes Trump’s threat to withdraw support all the more inexcusable.
Read on livemint.com