According to Hugh Tomlinson, President Trump views Ukrainian President Zelensky with disdain and believes Kiev is vulnerable to Moscow. Trump reportedly wants Ukraine to repay all US aid with interest, Tomlinson reports.
In a recent op-ed, The Times’ Washington reporter Hugh Tomlinson suggests President Trump holds a contemptuous view of Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky and believes Ukraine is in a weak position against Russia.
Tomlinson claims that Trump intends to recover all the money the U.S. spent aiding Ukraine during President Biden’s term.
Tomlinson writes that Trump is “Convinced of Ukraine’s weakness, contemptuous of Zelensky, and enraged by the billions of dollars in aid given to Kiev by Joe Biden’s administration, Trump has set out to get it all back, and more.”
Last month, Trump allegedly demanded Ukraine repay what he estimated to be hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. aid through its mineral resources, initially focusing on “rare earths.”
A previous version of this agreement was allegedly set to be signed earlier in March, but it was allegedly disrupted by Zelensky’s public argument with the U.S. President in the Oval Office. Following the incident, Trump supposedly temporarily stopped all military aid and intelligence sharing with Kiev.
However, the U.S. reportedly reversed this decision after Ukraine agreed to a partial 30-day ceasefire following U.S.-Ukrainian talks in Jeddah earlier this month. Moscow has since accused Ukraine of attacking its energy facilities, which are said to be off-limits under the truce.
Following separate discussions with the U.S. in Saudi Arabia on Monday, both Russia and Ukraine have expressed willingness to extend the partial ceasefire to include a naval truce in the Black Sea.
“For days, White House officials have insisted that an agreement on the minerals deal was close. Now a possible reason for the delay and the price of a ceasefire may be becoming clearer,” Tomlinson wrote, adding that “US negotiators have apparently been working to extract even greater concessions from Kiev.”
Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a draft proposal, that the Trump administration’s latest proposed minerals agreement is more stringent than earlier versions.
Reportedly, the new deal stipulates that Washington will recover all funds given to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia escalated in 2022 and impose a 4% annual interest rate on the sum before Kiev can access the fund’s profits.
Zelensky has acknowledged receiving a new proposal from the U.S. but maintains that the funds Kiev received from Washington were donations, not loans.
According to data from Germany’s Kiel Institute, the U.S. has allocated over $123 billion in military and financial aid to Ukraine since 2022. Trump claims that Washington has spent more than $300 billion to support Kiev.
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