President Donald Trump has placed a pause on aid to Ukraine, the White House announced late Monday.
“The President has been clear that he is focused on peace,” a senior administration official told VOA in an email. The official is not being named, as is customary when engaging with reporters. “We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well. We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution.”
Earlier Monday, Trump was pointed in saying a deal for rare earth minerals was key to continued U.S. support of Ukraine, and said he would make an announcement on the matter Tuesday when he speaks before a joint session of Congress.
There was fallout on both sides of the Atlantic Monday amid mounting European concerns about Ukraine’s future, as European leaders scrambled after Trump’s contentious Friday exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That Oval Office blow-up ended a minerals deal that Trump argued was key for continuing U.S. support for Ukraine.
Trump has pushed to end the fighting, but Zelenskyy has expressed fears that Trump is attempting to settle the conflict on terms more favorable to Moscow than Kyiv.
On Monday, the business-minded president hammered his increasingly blunt point: If Ukraine wants to survive, Zelenskyy needs to make a deal.
“It can be made very fast,” Trump said. “Now, maybe somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long, because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal. They’ve suffered more than anybody else.”
Earlier in the day in a social media posting, Trump derided Zelenskyy’s assessment that the end of Russia’s war with his country “is still very, very far away,” calling that “the worst statement.”
“America will not put up with it for much longer!” he added.
Analysts say they understand where Trump lands on major issues like Ukraine’s future membership in NATO and the prospect of U.S. troops on the ground — both hard nos from Trump.
But on this economic deal, they say, they can’t predict the president’s next move.
Even before Zelenskyy landed in Washington, the deal was painted in broad strokes. It was meant to allow U.S. investment in rare-earth mineral exploration in exchange for reinvestment.
But Zelenskyy had insisted on the need for U.S. security guarantees, which were not in the original draft.
Trump has promoted the need to end the war and has held a phone call with Putin in addition to senior U.S. officials meeting with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia to discuss the first stages of a potential peace deal without Ukrainian officials involved in the talks.
Trump said Sunday on Truth Social: “We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country – So that we don’t end up like Europe!” But after seeing Zelenskyy’s comment about peace prospects, Trump quickly pivoted back to assailing the Ukrainian leader.
That followed the talks Sunday in London during which British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told 18 allies that with the United States wavering in its support for Ukraine, Europe finds itself “at a crossroads in history.”
The British leader said that with no guarantee of U.S. involvement to act as a backup military support for would-be peacekeeping forces, “Europe must do the heavy lifting” in securing peace in Ukraine.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters Monday, “We welcome the Europeans taking a lead in European security. … They have to invest in the capability to do that. They’ve certainly shown a will.”
But Waltz said White House officials remain perplexed why the U.S.-Ukraine minerals mining deal fell apart, saying Zelenskyy “could have been left with an economic guarantee that would have benefited Ukraine, and I think the world, for a generation. So, it’s really confounding to us why we had kind of such hostility coming in.”
Unlike in Washington, Zelenskyy was warmly embraced at the summit by many of the European heads of state, along with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NATO chief Mark Rutte. Zelenskyy supporters rallied outside Starmer’s residence in support of Ukraine.
As the leaders gathered Sunday, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen warned, “We urgently have to rearm Europe” and “prepare for the worst” on the continent.
Starmer, when he first greeted Zelenskyy on Saturday, unveiled a $2.84 billion loan agreement to support Ukraine’s defense capabilities, to be paid back with the profits of immobilized sovereign Russian assets. Starmer said Britain, France and Ukraine have agreed to work on a ceasefire plan to present to the United States.
The Kremlin said in remarks aired Sunday that the United States’ dramatic shift in Europe foreign policy toward Russia is largely aligned with Moscow’s vision.
“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely coincides with our vision,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Russian state television that was recorded last Wednesday.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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