Fight House Fallout: Peace Trips on Egos
Once offered a ride Zelenskyy is asked to take a hike. Trump whisperers say make his ego your ally. Macron and Starmer showed how. Zelenskyy, prepped by European leaders, committed unforced errors. He fact checked Trump, was baited by J D Vance and engaged in a public squabble on details. Lesson #1: Don’t engage with subordinates! Lesson # 2: The powerful will dictate terms of gratitude. The ugly spat upends expectations and will inform strategy in Europe India, China.
Shankkar Aiyar | The Third Eye | The New Indian Express | 02 Mar 2025
Podcast: Peace falls to pieces in Trump Zelenskyy spat.
In February 2022, at the start of the war in Ukraine, the Biden administration offered to evacuate Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian president tweeted, “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.” This week, the third anniversary of the war, Zelenskyy was in Washington to pursue a peace deal pitched by the Trump administration. In one of the ugliest slugfests ever streamed live across the world, Zelenskyy was virtually told by Donald J Trump to take a hike.
Context is critical for comprehension. Trump had declared during his campaign that he would end the war in 24 hours. Trump and his MAGA base have clearly been up in arms against the flow of funds to Ukraine. For the self-confessed master of The Art of the Deal, the power equation is spelt by the what’s-in-it-for-us question. The answer his team came up with: a chunk of the rare earth minerals buried under Ukraine.
The minerals-for-peace optics has salience for the MAGA base. The US has provided an array of weaponry and spent billions — Trump says it’s $350 billion, while a report to the US Congress puts it at $182 billion. Trump’s peace deal presents access to critical minerals as a payback for support — lithium for renewable energy, titanium for aerospace and military, graphite for nuclear reactors, and rare earths for electronics. It’s also presented as a counter to China’s dominance on rare minerals.
Trump believes he can make Vladimir Putin an offer he can’t refuse. The orchestration began with a call between Trump and Putin, followed by the choreographed ushering in of Zelenskyy by his European supporters. The incentive for peace goes beyond the human cost. A ceasefire followed by peace would help the European economy too. It would allow the European Central Bank to cut rates, bring down energy prices and provide opportunities in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Tactics and strategy are vital to success. The consensus view across the world is to make Trump’s ego your ally. In recent weeks, French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer did this well. It’s what Trump whisperers call massaging of narcissism for preferred outcomes. Even within his cabinet, there is a race to be pointedly agreeable with Trump. It’s inconceivable that the European leaders would not have prepped Zelenskyy on this critical skill.
The Friday event followed the script for the first half hour — the interaction was a blend of nodding agreeability, consternation about pronouncements and perseverance on both sides. Zelenskyy and Trump seemed to be singing a tune from the same page. Around 30 minutes into the presser, Zelenskyy made what tennis players call ‘unforced errors’, unleashing a tirade of egos.
Zelenskyy fact-checked Trump and annotated details that typically are not mentioned in public in diplomacy. To make his point, he reeled out ceasefire violations by Putin since 2014 and in 2019 when Trump was president. The golden rule of power talks is to never engage with subordinates while meeting the boss. Zelenskyy entered into an argument with US Vice President J D Vance on his interpretations. “What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you asking about?” asked Zelenskyy.
This triggered a tongue-lashing first by Vance and then by Trump, who simply ended the session with a terse “All right, I think we’ve seen enough.” Then, characteristically, the star of The Apprentice added, “This is going to be great television, I will say that.” The ignominy was stark. Team Trump met in the Oval Office as Zelenskyy waited. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz stepped out and simply asked Zelenskyy to leave. The deal and the lunch stood cancelled.
This is not the first time a head of state has disagreed with a sitting US president. Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and US President Ronald Reagan disagreed on issues and debated ‘acid rain’. Indeed, Reagan went on to compliment Mulroney for deploying the adage “we can disagree without being disagreeable”. President George W Bush and the German Chancellor got along despite disagreements on the Iraq war and the use of Guantanamo Bay as a prison.
The primary caveat in diplomacy is: what you don’t say or how you present disagreement is fundamental for success. During the meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Trump doubled down on his idea of an eastern riviera around Gaza, claiming Egypt and Jordan would offer land parcels. Even as Trump went on, displaying practiced poise, the king of Jordan said a meeting was scheduled in Saudi Arabia and added, “Let us wait for the Egyptians… and not get ahead of ourselves.”
The true test of diplomacy rests in managing expectations. The European sponsors of the peace deal wanted Zelenskyy to work with the script, sign a memorandum, bag a ceasefire and buy time for negotiations. That was not to be. Zelenskyy, given the existential battle, insisted on an explicit guarantee where European peace-keeping would have a US backstop. Trump has argued that the minerals deal was an implicit guarantee that would deter Putin.
What transpired in the Oval Office will inform and influence leaders in Europe, Japan, Korea, India and China. More importantly, it will define the trajectory of ongoing tariff negotiations. Historically, the powerful tend to dictate the terms of gratitude. However, the powerful are also dependent, and it is useful in geopolitics to get entrenched and leverage dependence.
Shankkar Aiyar, political economy analyst, is author of ‘Accidental India’, ‘Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12-Digit Revolution’ and ‘The Gated Republic –India’s Public Policy Failures and Private Solutions’.
You can email him at shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com and follow him on X / Twitter @ShankkarAiyar. This column was first published here. His previous columns can be found here.
