A National Security Disaster in the Oval Office

The Trump administration seems eager to give Vladimir Putin a big win.

(Composite / Photos: GettyImages)

ANYONE WHO EXPECTED DONALD TRUMP’S foreign policy in his second term to look essentially like his foreign policy in his first term must have been shocked over the past few days. First, on Friday, at what was supposed to be the prelude to a formal signing of an agreement exchanging privileged access to Ukraine’s mineral resources for more American military support, President Trump and Vice President Vance suddenly turned on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of ingratitude and intransigence in negotiations and dismissing him from the White House without any deal being signed. The same day, the New York Times reported that previously approved American military aid to Ukraine has “slowed to a trickle” and that new tranches of aid have not been approved. Then, on Monday, Axios reported that Trump is planning a White House meeting with Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and other unnamed senior officials on the future of U.S. aid to Ukraine, but before that meeting even happened, the White House announced the predetermined outcome Monday evening.

If I have a bias concerning Russia and Ukraine, it was earned honestly over a career spent working with our European allies to deter, and if necessary defeat, Russian (or Soviet) aggression, or fighting alongside Ukrainians—not in their wars but in ours, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It was deeply concerning to see Trump and Vance try to shift the narrative against Zelensky by painting him as ungrateful for American aid. For one thing, the accusation is false. Zelensky thanked Trump and the American people for the aid multiple times on Friday alone; he had previously thanked Americans and American political leaders dozens of times. But the accusation of ingratitude is also strategically dangerous: Indications are that this rhetoric is contributing to weakening the Western alliance, emboldening America’s adversaries, and threatening the very foundation of NATO’s mission of collective defense.

Some suggest the entire Oval Office blowup at Zelensky was a ploy designed by the Trump administration to justify and message its wavering support for Ukraine. If so, this manipulation ignores the fact that for three years, Ukraine has been at the forefront of the greatest military conflict in Europe since World War II—a war that directly impacts U.S. strategic interests. American support for Ukraine is not charity; it is an investment in global stability and deterrence against adversaries who seek to dismantle the international order. Putin and his government have been as clear as ice-cold vodka: Their real enemy isn’t Ukraine, but NATO and the United States. The Ukrainians are fighting the Russians so we, and others, don’t have to.

This Oval Office engagement was supposed to be about two things: the potential exploitation by the United States of Ukraine’s raw materials in exchange for the promise of continued contributions to the future security of Ukraine. Ukraine possesses significant deposits of lithium, titanium, and rare earth elements—essential resources for the global transition to renewable energy and advanced industrial and military technology. Securing reliable access to these elements is as geopolitically important now as access to oil was in the twentieth century, as Western nations look to secure supplies independent of China and Russia. In fact, one possible motive for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago may have been to gain access to those minerals so that it might grow to be more than, as the late Senator John McCain said, a “gas station masquerading as a country.” A significant factor in Ukraine’s long-term security is not just retaining possession of these vast reserves, but negotiating the trade of these minerals for continued battlefield and economic support.

Ideally, Ukraine wouldn’t have to submit to neocolonial mineral concessions in exchange for its rights and sovereignty being respected. And ideally, the president of the United States would recognize that every dollar sent to Ukraine in aid saves many times as much by weakening one of America’s most potent adversaries—and that doesn’t even count the money spent in the United States on manufacturing and upgrading the defense industrial base.

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FOR THREE YEARS, ZELENSKY HAS SHOULDERED the enormous burden of leading a nation at war, fighting against one of the world’s largest militaries while simultaneously navigating international diplomacy and raucous domestic politics. Long wars weigh heavily on leaders, and Zelensky is no exception. His physical, mental, and moral fatigue is evident. He has endured assassination attempts, relentless Russian offensives, and the emotional toll of witnessing the destruction of his country and the death of not just his soldiers but also his citizens. Yet, he continues to lead, understanding that any sign of weakness could further embolden Russia. I believe his actions will someday provide a case study of effective strategic leadership in wartime, comparable to Churchill or Roosevelt.

Sitting next to him in the Oval Office was President Trump, who suggested hypothetically and without proof during his re-election campaign that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “would have never happened” on his watch, and then proclaimed he would end the war “in 24 hours.” Add to these remarks the previous troubling engagements with Zelensky that led to Trump’s first impeachment, and the continuous mis- and dis-information about the war coming from the Trump administration, and it is obvious why Ukraine’s president might not have been optimistic about the new administration. Then, within weeks of being confirmed, Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and the American press reported on President Trump’s multiple phone conversations with President Putin. To Zelensky, all this is not only demoralizing but also sends a clear message: American commitment is wavering. Even those who had once been strong backers of Ukraine—Rubio, Waltz, Senator Lindsey Graham, and others—all spun like ballerinas to support Trump’s posture, national security be damned.

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EUROPEANS KNOW THAT ANY EFFORT to negotiate with Russia will result in broken promises and more Russian aggression. The longstanding Kremlin strategy is known to anyone who studies Putin: Wait for fatigue to set in, then exploit a lack of understanding or confusion or distraction, then dictate terms favorable to Moscow, or else create different facts on the ground. If, as appears all but certain, the Trump administration continues to diminish support for Ukraine, it will threaten the sovereignty of Ukraine as a critical partner, condone the thousands of war crimes committed by Russia, send a signal to both our friends and our foes about the new whipsaw strategy practiced in the United States, and also open the door for Russia and China to exert control over valuable natural resources. While the loss of these materials to hostile actors would compromise the United States’s strategic autonomy, particularly in defense manufacturing and energy independence, they are just one element of the “deal.” A Ukraine that remains aligned with the West ensures that these resources are available to NATO allies rather than adversaries who seek to leverage economic dependency as a geopolitical weapon.

Trump, Vance, et al. are clearly desperate to get Americans not to think about the strategic and national-security implications of their policies, but to view international politics—peace and war—as a soap opera filled with petty personalities and fragile egos. As someone who spent a career serving in Europe, and a few years working with the Ukrainians, I find it appalling that political narratives are being shaped to undermine Ukraine, rather than focusing on the continued existential threat posed by Russia and our inappropriate responses to defending sovereign nations. The Trump administration’s attempts to frame Zelensky as ungrateful are not just misguided; they actively harm U.S. national security. Every time an American politician questions whether the United States should support Ukraine, Putin benefits. The Kremlin’s whole strategy is based on the assumption that if the West falters in its commitment, Ukraine will fall. And if Ukraine falls, the entire structure of European security is threatened, inviting further aggression that could require direct U.S. military involvement.

Again: The United States does not provide aid to Ukraine as a handout—it does so to uphold a world order that prevents wars and ensures prosperity. To abandon Ukraine is to betray our values and undermine decades of U.S. national strategy designed to contain threats before they reach our borders.

This is not a time for partisan games or ridiculous requests for apologies. It is a time for strategic clarity. Weakness invites aggression, and solidarity deters it. Our support for Ukraine is not about gratitude—it is about ensuring that authoritarian regimes cannot dictate the future of international security. This has never been just Ukraine’s fight. This is a fight for global stability and for the safety, prosperity, and freedom of the United Sates.