Allies must work with Zelenskiy after Trump spat, says Joly

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Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly says it’s crucial that her country and other allies work with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on reaching a good peace deal for his country to counter Russian aggression.

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She made the comments at an event in Vancouver, shortly after a meeting between Zelenskiy and United States President Donald Trump turned into a shouting match. Zelenskiy left the White House without signing a planned deal on critical minerals, and Trump took aim at him on social media, accusing the Ukrainian leader of being disrespectful.

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“He has shown great leadership and courage. He will never settle for a bad deal,” Joly said of Zelenskiy. “It’s for us important to make sure that we work with him and with our allies on that.”

“If we don’t get a good deal for Ukraine, we’re sending a message to Russia, and we know that President Putin has no red lines. If he has no red lines, it means that then NATO territory is at threat, and if NATO territory is at threat, we are at threat.”

She said it’s important that there are diplomatic conversations about ending the war and reaching a peace deal that will ensure that Putin doesn’t “leave, rearm and reattack.”

“Ukrainians have a right to be part of Europe, have a right to their own destiny,” Joly said. “And if we don’t do that, it means that the borders of every single country on the planet actually can be redrawn through force.”

At the time of Joly’s comments, she hadn’t yet watched the exchange between Trump and Zelenskiy. But she said phone had been “buzzing” with the news. She spoke with Senator Lindsey Graham about 15 minutes before the news conference in the Oval Office, and he was “quite positive” and expecting the critical minerals deal would be signed, she said. Joly also said Zelenskiy’s chief of staff briefed her on the Ukrainian strategy three days earlier.

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“What President Zelenskiy right now is going through in Ukraine is similar to what we’re seeing here. There’s really a rallying around the flag,” she said, referring to the increase in Canadians’ patriotic fervor in response to Trump’s “51st state” taunts and tariff threats.

“He’s actually extremely popular, more than maybe a month ago, because Ukrainians are really, really mad at the way that the comments about his leadership have been expressed,” she said of Zelenskiy. “Ukrainians, you can never underestimate them.”

Joly will host the Group of Seven foreign ministers’ summit in two weeks in Charlevoix, Quebec, where the Ukraine war is expected to top the agenda. Trump has adopted a strikingly different approach to the conflict from his predecessor, Joe Biden, including by allowing talks between American and Russian officials without a Ukrainian presence and pushing for the critical-minerals agreement to satisfy his concerns that American aid wouldn’t be repaid.

Canada has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, committing more than $12.4 billion in financial assistance and sanctioning more than 1,500 individuals connected to Russia and its allies. However, the country’s relatively small defence budget limits its influence and capacity to provide military assistance.

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“We’re a middle power. We are not a superpower,” Joly said. “We believe in these international norms and rules that have kept us safe, that are at the core of the United Nations, that are at the core of the idea of peace that our grandparents had in mind after the Second World War. So we need to defend them.”

She said she has been telling the Trump administration that the president can’t have a bad deal on Ukraine because China is watching to see how it all unfolds, with implications for “what China could do on Taiwan.”

Trump “does not want to be seen as weak,” Joly said. “There are many different reasons why this Ukrainian deal is really, really important because it sets the next steps of whether we will be in a much more peaceful world without too many threats to security or not.”

Bloomberg.com

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