Washington — U.S. military aid to Ukraine could be in jeopardy after a contentious Oval Office meeting Friday between President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions.
The day started on a positive note, with Mr. Trump joking with Zelenskyy, a guest book signing and warm conversation in the Oval Office.
But the episode has raised questions about whether Zelenskyy can move forward toward a peace deal, and whether the U.S. will or should pause aid to Ukraine.
Though several of the president’s allies have called on Zelenskyy to step down or “change,” Mr. Trump is not seeking regime change in Ukraine, according to the officials, who said there have been no discussions about who in Ukraine might be a better leader than its current president.
Multiple European officials have called top Trump officials since Zelenskyy left the White House Friday afternoon to ask how the minerals deal can be salvaged.
No phone calls between Trump and Putin have been scheduled, the officials said.
Still, the administration believes that the Ukrainian leader has put his country in a terrible position and that he missed out on a huge opportunity to have the U.S. as a business partner, with U.S. companies working on helping Ukraine monetize their mineral resources, such as gas and oil, aluminum and tritium and others.
The minerals deal was set to be signed with much pomp and circumstance, and it was the first step in what Mr. Trump foresaw as a progression towards peace. According to the officials, Mr. Trump fully intended to sign the minerals deal. Two official binders were prepared and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Ukrainian counterpart, Zelenskyy and Mr. Trump were going to sit at a conference table in the East Room to trumpet the success.
But there were suspicions before Zelenskyy arrived on Friday that it might fall apart. The Trump administration had been pushing for weeks for a minerals deal signing at the ministerial level, but Ukraine refused. Zelenskyy wanted security guarantees in exchange.
And following the Oval Office meeting, Ukrainian officials reached out Friday afternoon to senior White House officials desperate to get the deal back on track, but Mr. Trump was unwilling to talk to Zelenskyy further today, the officials said.
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr. Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz went to the Roosevelt Room, where Zelenskyy and his team were holding after the Oval Office meeting, Rubio made it clear that any further engagements Friday would be counter-productive, the officials said. Waltz told Zelenskyy he had made a tremendous mistake and had done a disservice to Ukraine and to Americans.
U.S. officials thought negotiations would be much harder with Russian President Vladimir Putin and have been in disbelief that it has been Zelenskyy who has been difficult, the sources said. Trump officials were concerned the Russians would come with all-or-nothing demands during a recent meeting in Riyadh, but they didn’t. The negotiators had reasonable requests for Rubio and Waltz, but instead it has been Ukraine that has had maximalist demands, according to the Trump officials.
The White House is now uncertain if they can get Russia and Ukraine to end the war that has dragged on for more than three years, the officials told CBS News.
Asked how Zelenskyy can repair this, the Trump officials said the Ukrainian leader needs to explicitly say he wants a ceasefire, because it’s now unclear to the administration that he would ever sign anything with Putin.
The Ukrainian leader, speaking to Fox News’ Bret Baier later Friday, rejected the notion that he wouldn’t sign a peace agreement with Putin. He said, “We will have negotiations,” and reiterated that Ukraine must have security guarantees.
“We are ready for peace but we have to be in a strong position,” Zelenskyy said. He also expressed confidence that the relationship with Mr. Trump can be salvaged.
The U.S. has made it clear to Ukraine that Mr. Trump wanted an economic partnership before talking about security guarantees as part of a ceasefire, if it happened, the officials disclosed. There have been no discussions among Trump officials about putting U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, have all been talking to Mr. Trump and his team about troop presence in Ukraine and what the security guarantees would look like.
Meanwhile, a defense official said there have been U.S. weapons shipments to Ukraine since Jan. 20, but no new packages have been announced. What was in the pipeline committed by the Biden administration has been continuing. It sometimes takes months for certain items, like vehicles, to arrive in Ukraine.
There is $3.85 billion left in drawdown authority for weaponry that can be pulled from existing U.S. stockpiles and sent to Ukraine, according to two U.S. officials. This is spending authority, not appropriated money, which means that it is up to the White House, not Congress, to determine whether to release that or not. It is also not considered “real money,” meaning it cannot be spent elsewhere, it is just authority to give Ukraine weapons from U.S. stockpiles. It is up to Mr. Trump to decide whether to send Zelenskyy the remainder of that weaponry.
Separately, the State Department also has about $1.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Ukraine that is under a policy review by Rubio and could potentially be held or released. The State Department under the Trump administration has only given Egypt and Israel waivers for FMF assistance.
Margaret Brennan and
contributed to this report.
