Over His Zelenskys: Trump Teaches Ukrainian Pres. Valuable Lesson in ‘The Art of the Deal’

Ukraine’s President Zelensky probably got bad advice. Or perhaps he has simply had too much love on the world stage for too long. But his performance on Friday at the White House was a textbook failure to understand the negotiating position of a small nation dependent on a superpower. It was also a failure to understand that President Donald Trump is pursuing a different and better line in foreign policy than his predecessor.

Readers who heard the story of Friday morning’s meltdown via so-called mainstream media sources will have likely seen the somewhat rough treatment President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance dealt Zelensky at the end of their public meeting. But those who watched the full 49 minutes will have seen a very different picture.  

Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova no doubt lamented the way Trump and Vance addressed her president. But as she held her head in her hands during the final minutes of the White House meeting, it would be a safe bet that she was also internally dismayed by Zelensky’s own behavior. Minutes from breaking for lunch and then signing on to a mineral rights deal with the U.S., he decided to pick a fight with Vance that sent the meeting spinning out of control—and was essentially kicked out of the White House.

It’s true that the first 38 minutes or so were largely good-natured and positive, but it is also fair to say that Zelensky did not handle himself well even early on. It may seem like a small thing, but his penchant for wearing a kind of pseudo-military garb to meetings probably bothers Trump, who wears a shirt and tie even when he is campaigning at McDonald’s or in a garbage truck. Nevertheless, Trump himself defended Zelensky when a reporter asked about the Ukrainian’s sartorial choice.

Apart from his attire, though, Zelensky seemed to be quibbling with Trump over whether the U.S. or Europe had given more to Ukraine. Zelensky might be technically correct in that, if you add up all the aid packages from Europe recorded on Statista, it is slightly more in economic terms than aid given by the United States. But this was a stupid quibble to make in public.

Moreover, as usual, if Trump was not completely precise, he was more accurate in the big picture. Even the left-wing British Guardian reports that Europe sent more money to Russia for oil and gas than they did to Ukraine for aid.(Remember how Trump told the Germans they should be buying energy from America rather than the Russians during his first term?)

Zelensky also felt the need to push for security guarantees for Ukraine, even though Trump was trying to focus on the immediate deal at hand and getting a ceasefire.

At around 24 minutes, Zelensky insisted that Putin had broken his ceasefire during Trump’s first presidency in “2016,” but Trump did not take office until 2017. Trump’s point was that Putin did not violate any agreements he had with the first Trump administration.

Indeed, despite all the rhetoric from the left about Trump aligning the U.S. with Russia, the reality has been somewhat different. In a recent interview, Tatsiana Kulakevich, a specialist in Eastern Europe at the University of South Florida, observed that, in 2019 alone, Trump sold Ukraine anti-tank missiles, backed out of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and put economic sanctions on Russia designed to block exports of Russian gas to Germany.

That was no new thing. In 2018, the foreign policy scholar Walter Russell Mead told NPR that, under Trump, “U.S. policy is almost as anti-Russian as it can be at the strategic level.” He noted that Trump’s approach “was taking a wrecking ball to the foundations of Russian power” while focusing on positive “atmospherics.” Altogether, Mead called it “a relationship of rivalry with Valentines.”

It is this reality that probably annoyed Trump at the beginning of Friday’s brouhaha, when a Polish reporter asked if Trump “aligned with Putin.” Trump didn’t take the bait, however, merely saying, “You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir. How are we doing on the deal?’”

Trump continued that he was aligned with the “world” and with “Europe.” Trump wants a deal that would bring peace—a theme he has been hammering since the start of the war.

It was at this point that Vance offered a brief statement about the different path the Trump administration (as compared to the Biden and Obama administrations) was following with regard to Russia. Rather than the path of “talking tough” and “thumping our chest and pretending that the president of the United States’ words mattered more than the president of the United States’ actions,” which had only resulted in Putin’s invasion and the destruction of “a significant chunk” of Ukraine, Vance observed, Trump’s path was “engaging in diplomacy.”

If only President Zelensky had simply prayed for the grace to keep his mouth shut, things would have gone differently. Instead, Zelensky launched into another challenge of the idea of a ceasefire without a security agreement since Putin has violated so many agreements before. “What kind of diplomacy, J.D., are you speaking about?” he said. “What do you mean?”

Again, it may be a small thing, but Vance referred to Zelensky as “Mr. President,” while Zelensky went with “J.D.” A fundamental lack of respect was being communicated, along with what Trump observed as eye rolling and other disrespectful mannerisms.

That wasn’t the worst part, though. When Vance argued that Ukraine had problems recruiting soldiers, Zelensky quizzed Vance on whether he had been to Ukraine, implying that without such a visit the vice president could not talk about the country’s current troubles.

Then he went further, suggesting that the war could even affect the U.S.: “First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have a nice ocean and don’t feel it now. But you will feel it in the future.”

Perhaps Zelensky meant it as a warning, but it sounded like a threat. He attempted to back off by suggesting that all he meant was Russian “influence,” but this was another false move. Given the Russian Collusion hoax, this statement could only make a bad conversation worse.

Vance demanded some signs of gratitude to the U.S. and brought up an uncomfortable fact about foreign influence in elections concerning Zelensky: “You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.”

Indeed, Zelensky had gone to a munitions plant in the swing state, signing missiles with Democratic Governor Shapiro, a one-time vice-presidential contender for the Democrats. He had also told The New Yorker that Vance was “too radical.”

Zelensky had truly stepped in it in all sorts of ways. But the worst part was the overall picture of a man trying to one-up his host and political patron in public. Vance had warned him early in the exchange that it was “disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.” Yet Zelensky rudely persisted.

Was Zelensky put up to this performance by Democrats and global elites eager to trap Trump again? That’s journalist Mollie Hemingway’s theory.

It may be, however, that the Ukrainian leader is too far over his skis because he’s been allowed to do as he pleases for too long. Mollie’s husband, Mark Hemingway, observed that Zelensky’s tantrum-like behavior was noticed at a 2023 NATO summit, and his demanding attitude even enraged Sleepy Joe Biden.

The reality is that Trump is, as Vance said at the Munich Security Conference, a new sheriff. He’s not going to be bullied into handing over billions as we have in the past. And he’s not going to be unrealistic about what Ukraine is capable of doing.

As Victor Davis Hanson observed, though how much Putin will concede is an open question, there will not be a Ukrainian retaking of Crimea or the Donbass; nor will Ukraine be joining NATO. Ukraine’s security will be dependent upon the weapons that Europeans and the U.S. will continue to supply and a joint economic venture—namely, the mineral deal.

Trump sending Zelensky out of the White House may seem harsh, but it may well be the best thing for the whole situation. Trump’s history is of speaking softly but carrying a big stick with Putin. With Zelensky, he is speaking harshly but for a two-fold purpose: keeping Russia at the negotiating table and getting Zelensky and Europeans to grasp reality. A lasting peace will involve compromise.

The best bet is that Ukraine’s president will be back in the sheriff’s office soon, ready to sign on the dotted line. Perhaps he could pick up a copy of The Art of the Deal in the meantime.

David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.