Bravo to President Trump for his course correction on Ukraine — it could be the first step on the road to lasting peace.
On Wednesday, Trump confirmed he’d be sitting down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington Friday to discuss an end to the war and sign the long-awaited mineral-rights deal.
That’s a welcome change, after a couple of weeks of back-and-forth sniping between the two leaders, with our prez even saying Ukraine “should never have started” the war and calling Zelensky a “dictator.”
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s actual dictator, was no doubt licking his chops seeing the leader of the Free World (who’s also out to forge a peace settlement) bash his opponent on the world stage.
So it’s a very good thing, for Ukraine and the West at large, that Trump seems to now be listening to his better angels.
Meeting face-to-face with Zelensky before any coming Putin sitdown matters: It signals to Moscow that Washington is still willing to protect Kyiv’s interests.
And that there’s not as much daylight between the White House and our ally as the Kremlin might have hoped.
As Trump was saying weeks ago, Putin needs an end to hostilities: His economy’s starting to fall apart, he’s running out of cannon fodder — and he doesn’t want to become even more dependent on China.
Letting Vlad know he’s “going to have to” make concessions, as Trump said Wednesday, drives that deeper reality home.
Plus, the mineral deal being inked is far better than the earlier talk of one aiming to fleece war-torn Ukraine for 50% of its revenue from all from natural resources, ports and infrastructure indefinitely as retroactive “payback” for US military aid.
Though it comes with no explicit security guarantees (Trump still wants Europe to start pulling its weight on defense), this deal would tie American interests to Ukraine’s welfare, which raises the stakes of any future Kremlin aggression.
Some American workers would likely be on the ground to help with mineral extraction and processing, and as Trump put it: “Nobody’s going to be messing around with our people when we’re there.”
Ukraine and the United States being on the outs only serves Putin’s interests.
By extending an olive branch to Zelensky, Trump is proving he can put America first and do the right thing.
