By AAMER MADHANI and JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy had written to him to say he appreciates U.S. support for his country in its war with Russia and is ready to sign a deal that could ensure future American support.
In a speech to Congress following last week’s disastrous meeting at the White House, Trump said Zelenskyy had told him that Ukraine is ready to negotiate a peace deal with Russia as soon as possible and would accept a critical minerals agreement with the U.S. to facilitate that.
Trump’s remarks came after Vice President JD Vance, who was a major player in the breakdown between the president and Zelenskyy on Friday, struck a new nerve with allies by offering skeptical comments about a potential international security force for postwar Ukraine proposed by Britain and France.
“Earlier today, I received an important letter from President Zelenskyy of Ukraine,” Trump said. Quoting from the letter, Trump said Zelenskyy told him that “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians.”
“My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts,” Trump quoted Zelenskyy as writing. “We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence.”
Trump added that Zelenskyy said he was ready to sign the minerals deal “at any. time that is convenient for you.”
Although Trump said he “appreciated” getting the letter, he did not say if it would affect his policy toward Ukraine, which on Monday was dominated by his decision to pause military aid to the country.
Earlier Tuesday, Vance had said the minerals deal would be a more practical deterrent against Russian President Vladimir Putin than a peacekeeping force for postwar Ukraine that includes “some random country.”
In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, Vance said the economic pact with Kyiv sought by Trump “is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
The Trump administration has been making the case that tightening U.S.-Ukraine economic ties through an agreement that gives the U.S. access to valuable mineral deposits in Ukraine will give Russia pause about taking malign action against Ukraine in the future.
Vance did not mention any particular country in his skeptical comments about a potential peacekeeping mission. But the “random country” comment was seen by some lawmakers and government officials in the U.K. and France as a slight that discounted both countries’ partnership with the U.S. military in conflict zones over the past 25 years.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are leading the call for a post-conflict peacekeeping force in Ukraine to prevent Russia from invading again if Moscow and Kyiv reach a truce to put a stop to Russia’s invasion, launched in February 2022.
French troops deployed to Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. And British troops have served alongside American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and in a U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group.
Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage told broadcaster GB News that “JD Vance is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.”
“For 20 years in Afghanistan, pro rata our size against America’s, we spent the same amount of money, we put the same number of men and women in, and we suffered the same losses,” Farage added. “We stood by America all through those 20 years putting in exactly the same contribution. And, all right, they may be six times bigger, but we did our bit.”
Vance on Tuesday took to social media to try to head off the criticism by noting that he didn’t name any countries in the TV interview. He also applauded Britain and France for fighting “bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years, and beyond.”
Later, during an appearance on Capitol Hill, Vance underscored to reporters that “the British and the French have offered to step up in a big way.”
French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu, in France’s parliament, noted the move by Vance. “Thankfully, the American vice president corrected his comments,” Lecornu said.
But in London, Liberal Democrat defense spokeswoman Helen Maguire, a former Royal Military Police officer who served in Iraq, called for the U.K. ambassador in Washington to ask Vance to apologize.
“JD Vance is erasing from history the hundreds of British troops who gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said. “I saw firsthand how American and British soldiers fought bravely together shoulder to shoulder. Six of my own regiment, the Royal Military Police, didn’t return home from Iraq. This is a sinister attempt to deny that reality.”
Trump administration and Ukrainian officials, during Zelenskyy’s White House visit last week, had been expected to sign off on the critical minerals deal, intended in part to pay back the U.S. for aid it has sent Kyiv since the start of the war.
But that plan was scrapped as the visit was ended abruptly after Trump and Vance had a heated exchange with Zelenskyy during Oval Office talks at the start of the visit.
Ukraine is believed to have deposits of strategically important minerals — including titanium. lithium and manganese — that could be useful for American aerospace, electric vehicle and medical manufacturing.
Lawless reported from London. AP writers John Leicester in Paris and Darlene Superville contributed reporting.
