Washington — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that an economic deal with Ukraine is not currently on the table after the contentious Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“All President Zelensky had to do was come in and sign this economic agreement, and again show no daylight — no daylight — between Ukrainian people and the American people, and he chose to blow that up,” Bessent said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
The signing of a key economic agreement was abruptly canceled Friday and Zelenskyy’s visit was cut short after the meeting devolved into a feud between the Ukrainian president on one side and Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance on the other. Zelenskyy was ultimately asked to leave the White House, and the multibillion-dollar critical minerals deal went unsigned.
Friday’s heated exchange came after Zelenskyy expressed doubt over whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would honor a potential peace agreement, following repeated violation of previous ceasefire deals. Meanwhile, peace negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine are not yet underway, though Mr. Trump repeatedly pledged to bring an end to the war promptly after taking office.
Still, Zelenskyy said on social media Saturday that Ukraine is ready to sign the agreement, calling it “the first step toward security guarantees,” while noting that the country needs more assurances.
“A ceasefire without security guarantees is dangerous for Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said. “We’ve been fighting for three years, and Ukrainian people need to know that America is on our side.”
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Bessent, who crafted the economic agreement, said Sunday that it’s “impossible to have an economic deal without a peace deal,” while acknowledging that the economic deal was initially supposed to be a building block toward securing a peace deal in Ukraine.
“President Zelenskyy has thrown off the sequencing,” Bessent said, noting that the administration was set up for the deal signing on Friday.
The treasury secretary said the “most tragic part” of Friday’s breakdown is that Mr. Trump’s plan was to use the economic arrangement to “further intertwine the American people and Ukrainian people” and to “show the Russian leadership that there was no daylight” between them.
“And President Zelenskyy came into the Oval Office and tried to relitigate in front of the world the deal,” Bessent said, arguing that he should have done so behind closed doors.
Bessent said the administration now has to see how Zelenskyy wants to proceed, saying an economic agreement would be “rendered moot if he wants the fighting to continue” while noting that “President Trump wants a peace deal.”
Mr. Trump’s Republican allies have also defended the unprecedented Oval Office meeting.
Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, said on “Face the Nation” that Zelenskyy’s behavior at the meeting “inappropriate,” and the meeting “should have been a win.”
“Instead of taking that win, he turned it into a debate on American security guarantees on the peace negotiations instead of taking that win and then from that going forward,” Turner said.
Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat who also appeared on “Face the Nation,” acknowledged that “that kind of negotiation should not be done in public in front of cameras,” while arguing that Zelenskyy “was cornered and he was bullied in the Oval Office.”
Kelly said he thinks Mr. Trump and Vance were “trying to look tough,” but he argued the confrontation made the U.S. look weak, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “the only winner in that exchange.”
“So it was a sad day for our country,” Kelly said. “It was a dumpster fire of diplomacy.”
