Why???

Why in the world would President Trump and President Zelenskyy want to finalize an important but delicate negotiation in front of television cameras backed by reporters asking gotcha questions?

After watching snippets of the disastrous meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy, I watched Brett Baier’s interview of President Zelenskyy before I saw the complete recording of the White House event and thought that Mr. Baier had conducted a good interview that was respectful of Mr. Zelenskyy’s statements. I was therefore surprised at the harsh evaluation of Zelenskyy’s conduct by the Fox panel members, including Brit Hume who is no fan of President Trump, as well as Republican politicians such as  Lindsay Graham who had been strong supporters of Ukraine. After viewing the entire White House event I could better understand their reaction even if I did not fully agree with them.

Some people say the public viewing of the event was the idea of President Zelenskyy. If so it was a stupid idea. Normally tough negotiations are done behind closed doors and the press is invited only to official public announcements accompanied by the coordinated statements of the parties. But there were a lot of loose ends in this agreement regarding American access to Ukrainian rare earth minerals, especially in the mind of President Zelenskyy. He wanted to include security arrangements to guarantee Ukrainian independence after any sort of peace agreement or cease fire. President Trump was only interested in the business deal and considered security arrangements as some sort of afterthought.

President Zelenskyy tried to convince President Trump that Putin could not be trusted. He explained how Putin had repeatedly broken agreements (25 times he said during the meeting). Trump clearly thought he could control Putin. “I don't worry about security,” he said. But Zelenskyy could not afford to be so nonchalant about security, his country and his people were at risk. I don’t think President Zelenskyy trusted President Trump much more than he did Mr. Putin. As a business person (as Mr. Trump bragged in the meeting), Trump routinely stiffed suppliers, cheated partners and defaulted on his lenders. He declared bankruptcy six times, wiping out his business partners. But the Trump business plan protected Mr. Trump because he never invested cash equity in most of those deals, just lending his name in return for a share of the profits. Even now, President Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico are a violation of the USMCA trade agreement that he cajoled those countries into signing when he threatened to dump NAFTA.

Donald Trump is known to cheat at golf. One playing partner was quoted in Golf Magazine as saying, “he (Mr. Trump) said, ‘You see those two guys? They cheat. See me? I cheat. And I expect you to cheat because we’re going to beat those two guys today.’… So, yes, it’s true, he’s going to cheat you. But I think Donald, in his heart of hearts, believes that you’re gonna cheat him, too. So if it’s the same, if everybody’s cheating, he doesn’t see it as really cheating.” I think in his heart of hearts President Trump believes President Zelenskyy was trying to cheat him (although I don’t see how he could given his situation).

Earlier in the week, the United States had voted along with Russia, North Korea and Belarus to block a condemnation of Russia at the United Nations. This, along with the White House debacle, prompted the Moscow Times to say, “Kremlin Says U.S. Foreign Policy Shift Aligns With Its Own Vision.” I am not sure Donald Trump’s foreign policy aligns with Moscow’s. His foreign policy is his. But at the White House implosion on February 28th, JD Vance sure sounded a lot like a Kremlin spokesperson.

If you listen to President Trump’s speeches it is easy to see that he believes that everyone is trying to cheat him - or America, which to him is pretty much the same thing. He sees the world as a zero-sum game. Only winners and losers. And in the rare earth minerals deal Ukraine was clearly going to be the loser.