Prospects for an American pact with Kyiv over minerals — and, indeed, for an American-brokered peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine — are looking fraught after the astounding argument that erupted in the Oval Office this afternoon. Does it also signal the collapse of the working relationship between President Zelensky and the Trump administration? If so, it raises the question of how, or whether, Ukraine can carry on absent America’s support.

A geopolitical rupture on such a scale would be startling, but no more so than the shouting match that broke out at the White House this afternoon. The debate appeared to center on the question of what security guarantees Ukraine would get from America in the event of a peace pact with Russia. Mr. Zelensky rankled President Trump by raising doubts over President Putin’s likelihood of keeping his word. Vice President Vance spoke up to chide the Ukrainian leader.

“Putin will never stop and will go further and further,” Mr. Zelensky warned, with cameras tracking every syllable. The Russian tyrant, he said, had broken previous cease-fire promises. Mr. Vance, apparently trying to impress the president, replied: “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.” Mr. Trump, the adult in the room, added: “It’s going to be very hard to do business like this.” 

“You’ve got to be more thankful,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky, “because let me tell you, you don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards, but without us you don’t have any cards.” The Ukrainian president’s rejoinder: “We’re not playing cards.” An irate President Trump warned the Ukrainian, “You’re gambling with World War III” and “you’re either going to make a deal or we’re out, and if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think it is going to be pretty.”

If it was “great television,” as Mr. Trump noted, the exchange seemed to derail any pact between America and Ukraine involving hundreds of billions of dollars in investments and the extraction of valuable rare earth minerals — touted as advantageous for both nations and a marker of Washington’s support for the beleaguered democracy led by Mr. Zelensky. Yet America has its own interests in the continued existence of an independent Ukraine.

Secretary Bessent called the uproar “one of the great diplomatic own goals in history” and suggested that it’s “hard to make an economic deal with a leader who doesn’t want a peace deal.” Yet was the pact a path to preserving Ukraine’s independence? One of Mr. Bessent’s predecessors, Larry Summers, characterized it as “a Versailles-like agreement imposed, not on aggressors, but imposed on the victims of aggression.”

Mr. Bessent disputed that claim, calling the deal “a win-win” for Ukraine and America. That view may yet be vindicated if cooler heads prevail. It could even result in new leadership at Kyiv — a possibility mooted by Senator Graham in the aftermath of the Oval Office debacle. It’s not clear what alternatives are available to Ukraine. The EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, urged Mr. Zelensky to “Be strong, be brave, be fearless.” 

Canada’s foreign minister insisted that Mr. Zelensky “will never settle for a bad deal,” adding, in a reference to the North Atlantic Treaty members, that it’s “important to make sure that we work with him and with our allies on that.” Yet do the members of NATO have the resources — or the time — to build up their own security infrastructure, or mount an effective military or economic defense of Ukraine, without support from America?

One of the clearest-eyed appraisals we saw today following the White House debate came from the historian Slawomir Debski of Poland. That’s a country which knows all too well the value of Russian promises. He quotes a source at Kyiv who says: “Zelensky doesn’t need Trump’s help to give Putin four regions, downsize the army, and abandon NATO aspirations. If he wanted to surrender to Putin, he would have gone to Moscow, not Washington.”