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.
I watched this and I found it disgusting. It seemed to me that this was pure blackmail. This American government can’t be trusted to keep its commitments and I won’t be surprised if he pulls such stunts with Taiwan as well.
I wonder if any other world leader would like to visit the White House and be insulted by this administration !!
Zel should fly to another country in EU for mineral deal
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Watching that inteview and remembering the first Zelensky’s adresses to his and even my russian people early in the war, I was pretty occupied with an idea of how these two numbheads would be good punching bags once I put a trash bag on them and use a duct tape to ensure their breath doesn’t leave it, and hitting them repatedly with a fist or some blunt and heavy object. I don’t usually accept or encourage violence, but I felt lost watching this shit piece of negotiations and also very, morbidly angry. I couldn’t avoid thinking of going physical with them and it probably took a year and a half from Zelensky’s tired neurons to keep himself contained until the meeting ended. I’m pretty sure he kicked something after leaving it. I’m sure I would’ve if I has been him.
Europe, don’t count on America for shit. Do what needs to be done before Ukraine is wiped from the map. They will come for you too.
American here, we are a shit country with shit people. Good luck and please liberate us from the fascists when it really hits the fan.
The U.S. are no longer the leaders of the free world. It’s up to Europe now. The U.S. is a fucking shithole.
The U.S. are no longer the leaders of the free world.
Frankly, most of the time that was said it was said by Americans and the rest of us just smiled and nodded politely.
As an American, I’ve been more overtly disagreeing with the idiots saying this stuff.
and the rest of us just smiled and nodded politely while nervously eyeing the gigantic stick America was waving around.
America was only ever the “leader” of the free world because no other country wanted to bother with going up against their military. They have bases all over the world. Politely nodding was considered a small price to pay for not being targeted by them.
But this current administration has proved that politely nodding won’t keep a target off of your back. So now, countries have started rethinking their attitudes towards those American military bases.
Yeah most Americans don’t realize we’ve been slowly losing our Hegemony in world power since the world was well rebuilt after World War 2. But even I thought we had another few decades before we just shit the bed.
EU governments were completely happy letting it be the case as well. Don’t act like they were doing much to try and reduce their reliance on US aid.
Yeah, so? They were willing to play along as long as America was reasonably well behaved about it. That was the unspoken bargain of America’s Cold War and post-Cold War international influence - they got to have plenty of soft power, and in exchange they got to play out their World Police fantasy.
Now that’s going to be going away.
Fair enough. It’s up to the E.U. now.
Let’s see if they’re going to get off their ass, or if they’ll just try appeasement again.
We will hopefully do that, but it’s also up to the American citizens to finally put up a proper resistance. One of the most worrying things to me is how indifferent the majority of Americans seem to be to their country turning fascist and betraying its allies. There were some protests sure, but they’re ridiculously tiny compared to protests in even much smaller countries like Georgia. It’s time to wake the fuck up before power has fully been consolidated and there’s no way back. Europe may be able to stand alone against Russia, but against Russia and the US will be tough.
It’s worse than indifference. I posted on NextDoor about NOAA being gutted (this was 2-weeks ago, not about today’s news) and the response was fucked. Got called a socialist, communist, “fuck is wrong with people when we try to reduce spending”, happy to spend money on weather apps as-is (who the fuck does that?!), liberal (in a bad way, of course), some shit about me shitting on vets (?!), on and on. Shit was so hard-on for Trump and Musk it was the most commented post for a week.
About 35% of Georgia’s population lives in Tbilisi. The second largest population center is is Batumi at around 6%. There are 360km between them.
The Los Angeles metro area is America’s largest population center at around 5% of the population. The DC metro area is the 7th largest at just under 2% of the population. There are 4300km between them.
This is on top of the car centric sprawl of US cities with minimal public transportation. If (even generously) 30% of the population wanted a unified protest, how would they reach each other? Let alone converge to protest at somewhere that matters.
Oh, come on. There are still cities with millions of people, where hundreds of thousands could easily get together to protest. Cities double the population size of the entire country of Georgia. There were much larger protests e.g. in DC under the first Trump administration but this time it’s too much of a bother?
That was after 4 years of unrest. “Could easily get together” sounds like its coming from someone who’s never had a daily 2 hour round-trip driving commute. Let alone the fact that half of America was sub 0°F (-17°C) for multiple days in the past month.
Protest size will grow as the weather warms up and the crackdowns fully begin. But don’t expect to see much on the news. This time around the media and tech moguls have all preemptively bent the knee.
You’ve answered the question of why America doesn’t protest, but maybe not in the way you think you have
I lost confidence in the American public. The egos that are displayed on TV and social media has brainwashed everyone. It’s infuriating to see it all.
Americans are cowards for letting Russia take over their country
Yeah, but we’re rocking a steady 1.21 gigawatts off Ronald Reagan’s spinning corpse.
Murica died with a whimper!
We’re dying by a type of asphyxiation caused by sniffing our own farts for almost a hundred years.
It died with the sound of Putin’s balls being gurgled by Republicans
The greatest bigly whimper
Hard to dispute.
The Kremlin dictates U.S. policy.
Mark my words: Trump will now sign a minerals deal in Ukraine with Putin
Putin’s arm is so far up the orange shitbag’s ass that you cam see the fingers waggle eveytime he opens his mouth
The whole world sees it including the American people who clearly don’t care.
The majority of American voters have shown us who they are evil garbage.
Trump and Vance are total imbeciles. Fucking toddlers are more coherent.
Just when you thought you couldn’t get any more embarrassed being an American.
This is a great window into how Trump, Vance and MAGA do business.
Bully. Yell. Lie. Threaten.
You think you’re as embarrassed as you could be? We’re just getting started. You can’t even see rock bottom from where we are now.
Americans will only start to feel embarassment when they need to apply for asylum in other countries to escape the housefire they started. Good luck with that, btw. Oh yeah, and that day still won’t be close to bottom. Friendly reminder that the turnover for food in the USA without resupply is 3 days.
For a guy who said he’s not gonna start any wars, he sure is acting like a guy who’s gonna start a war.
Incredibly shameful.
Americans, I expect you to fight rhis bully.
Please, grow a fkin pair and start fighting back. You don’t want to be regretting your lack of fighting back while you can.
Rage against rhe machine please.
That assumes most Americans are against what Trump is doing which is not the case based on election results. And unlike the civil war for slavery its not like opposing sides are neatly divided by regions this time around either.
It’s more like a random mixture of differing sides living side by side, so rage against the machine would end up looking more like neighbors carrying out reenacting their favorite moments from the Purge movies and just what looks like indiscriminate mass murder between civilians. Not even state vs state.
How? Like tell us how. You want us to try and kill people in the streets? Or maybe continue with the protests that are happening? You want us to civil war? I’m just waiting for how us Americans can take out Trump and the republican party. And before you answer look at your country and population and size and compare it to the united states before you say just grow a pair, you can come and suicide yourself trying to take on a assassination attempt if you want, maybe you grow a pair. So if you dont have a real solid plan for how,I don’t wanna hear shit from you
Problem is most of us are under personal attack, so we don’t have the ability or energy to fight for others. And since the personal attacks are of a potentially violent or otherwise life threatening nature rather than simply a political one, it means many of us can’t afford to stand up.
He won the election. He destroyed the Democrats. More than half the country voted for him. This is what they wanted. You might not like it but you’re gonna have to accept that even though the majority of Lemmy and Reddit agree with you, you’re still the minority compared to the rest of the country. You’re telling us to fight back against this president that you don’t like. Be the change you want to see. Change the minds of everyone around you.
A German before WWII wouldn’t change a word. Shame.
That’s not an argument dipshit hit us with your competent plan to turn this around and we’ll join behind you but all you’ve offered is derision and haughty quips.
That’s not for me to say, I’ve never been to the US (fortunately). But I can think of a few option.
Massive strikes, for weeks. Boycots. Protests. Violence. Courage.
I’m portuguese. Go check our revolution in 1974, my father was part of it. It is possible if you want, people actually have the power.
Maybe start trying instead of insulting and being defensive. Like I care if you offend me on the internet.
That’s all they have, They sit behind a keyboard raging at the world because things aren’t the way they want. All that energy would be better placed in looking for solutions.
The Democrats destroyed themselves. Constructed opposition at best. Shamefully inept at worst.
He should fly to Brussels to discuss Europe’s offer. They won’t tell him repeatedly that he should be more thankful.
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If you were one who lived in USA and didn’t vote for him, what would you do to not “let this happen”?
I want to be clear this is the doing of Republicans in America they are evil.
It’s gonna be interesting watching to see if all the “All Russian people are complicit because they don’t rise up and kick Putin out” crowd actually put their money where their mouths are and show them how it’s done, or if it was all bluster.
To be clear, I hope it’s the former but I think it’s the latter.
Honestly, we – as Americans – are all complicit.
Then do something about it. If you’re still too hesitant or worried to show up to protests, then from Europe with love: Fuck you, go to hell.
As an American who didn’t make that mistake, I heartily agree.
