President Volodymyr Zelensky left the White House early without signing a mineral deal with the United States following a heated exchange with President Donald Trump on Feb. 28.

Zelensky departed in his motorcade around 1:45 p.m. local time, without holding a joint news conference scheduled for later in the day, after the two leaders got into a heated argument while speaking with journalists in the Oval Office.

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CNN reported that following the exchange, Zelensky and Trump left to separate rooms, with the Ukrainian delegation wanting to continue talks with the Trump administration.

Trump later ordered his officials to tell the Ukrainian officials to leave the White House, despite protest from the Ukrainian delegation.

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  • Xanza@lemm.ee
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    8 hours ago

    The wording is so insane to me. Like he was just begging to sign that deal. lol

    There’s no way he was going to sign it. He didn’t come to the US to sign it. He came here to negotiate into a reasonable deal for both countries. This headline makes it sound like he lost out, and he really didn’t. Like, sure, we could have swooped in and helped Ukraine a little more, but in return we would get billions, maybe even trillions in return… It’s literally war profiteering out in the open.

    That kind of shit used to be illegal and now we have Presidents televising his profiteering… This timeline is fucking nuts.

    • robbinhood@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Ukraine’s mineral resources really aren’t even that considerable on a global scale. They’re not insignificant but their economic value at the moment, even setting aside the war, doesn’t have American companies salivating.

      This minerals for protection thing apparently was floated by Ukraine first to the Biden administration and Trump campaign. The Biden administration didn’t do much with it because, among other things, the actual economic and practical value was questionable.

      Trump, on the other hand, just wants to be seen making deals. Zelenskyy and Ukraine first floated the general idea because they knew Trump is highly transactional and it’d give Trump an easy “win.”

      I highly doubt trillions in profits are anywhere in the mix.

      And you don’t want to negotiate anything with Trump directly. If Zelenskyy did that intentionally, he dropped the ball. Trump is far too mercurial and often only grasps issues in the most basic of senses. Trying to get into a nuts and bolts negotiation with him is pointless. Hammer that out first, get something signable without too onerous of long term commitments, compliment him, sign, move on.

    • stardust@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      US assurance means as much as Russian assurance anyways, and US is known to go back on deals they themselves proposed and signed like what they are doing to Canada. So if the US isn’t even making a good faith attempt at a deal they likely wouldn’t stick to in order to protect Ukraine it just shows how corrupt negotions were from the start.

      • Lit@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        that is why it is important for smaller countries to join up to form something like EU and etc. so as to function like a big country.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      That’s what the article says. Zelensky wanted to continue negotiations.

      There are things the US has that they cannot get from the EU. If there would ever be a deal that would be the basis.