Washington: A week ago Donald Trump branded Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator. On Friday he will host the Ukrainian president at the White House and sign a deal granting Washington access to Ukraine’s rare minerals.
The extraordinary turnaround caps a week of frantic international diplomacy centered on Washington, as Kyiv seeks to shore up support despite Trump’s recent pivot toward Russia.
Trump upended years of US policy on Ukraine two weeks ago when he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and started talks on ending the three-year-old war — without Kyiv.
He also alarmed allies as he appeared to turn on Zelensky, berating him as a “dictator without elections” and blaming Ukraine for Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
But Trump’s tone has softened in recent days after visits by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“I have a lot of respect for him,” Trump said of Zelensky on Thursday. “We’re going to get along really well.”
Trump also backtracked on the “dictator” broadside he launched on social media at Zelensky last week — a jibe he had previously refused to retract even as he declined to call Putin a dictator too.
“Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that,” Trump responded when asked about the Zelensky comment by journalists during a meeting with Starmer.
The dictator outburst was sparked in particular by Zelensky’s initial rejection of the deal to give Washington preferential access to Ukrainian natural resources, including oil, gas and rare earth metals.
Zelensky demanded US security guarantees as part of any deal but Trump has refused to give any commitments.
