Just hours before Volodymyr Zelensky enters his office to sign a major rare earth mineral deal, Donald Trump has declared that Ukraine can "forget" about NATO membership, blaming the alliance for causing the conflict with Russia.
The US president made the comments at his cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the first of its kind since his inauguration.
He boldly declared that war-torn Ukraine could forget about NATO membership, blaming the alliance for igniting the conflict.
"You can forget about that. That's probably why this all started," Trump told reporters.
He went on to say how America will benefit from the minerals deal as the country will "give back the money donated" .
"The deal that we're making brings us great wealth. We're getting back the money that we spent and hopefully we'll be able to fix this," Trump said.
Regarding the pressure for security guarantees for Ukraine, Trump made it clear that he is not offering much to Zelensky.
"I'm not going to make security guarantees. We're going to make Europe do this because Europe is their neighbor, but we're making sure everything goes well," the US President said.
Trump insisted that Ukraine would also benefit from the deal.
"No one will mess with the people when we're there," he added. (A2 Televizion)
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