Zelensky’s funeral diplomacy proves once again how fickle Trump can be ...Middle East

WASHINGTON, DC — If the most unpredictable place in Washington is now the space between President Donald Trump and a live television camera, the most opportunistic space at the Vatican this weekend proved to be the distance between President Volodymyr Zelensky’s lips and the US leader’s ear.

For fifteen minutes, Ukraine’s wartime champion secured a chance to try and win Trump over. Two months after his catastrophic 28 February visit to the Oval Office, where Trump and Vice President JD Vance mugged their visitor in front of the White House press corps, the two leaders sat together in a marbled hallway at St. Peter’s Basilica and attempted to make amends.

The images of the conversation became immediately iconic, destined to be printed in history books for generations to come.

Just the two of them, sitting on a pair of chairs that would not be out of place in any American hotel conference centre, engaged in deep conversation with no audience, aides, translators nor note-takers, but with deep potential impact for millions of people in the warzone and beyond.

Both sides claimed the conversation was valuable. The White House called the discussion “very productive”. Zelensky described it as a “good meeting. We discussed a lot, one on one”.

Further images showed that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron were also on-hand at one point, with the French President placing a supportive hand on Zelensky’s shoulder.

Once the Papal funeral was over, the conversation’s dramatic impact on Trump became apparent.

“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns over the last few days”, he fumed on social media.

“It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently”.

Trump then indicated he may soon unveil fresh sanctions against the Kremlin leader as a mark of his sudden realisation that perhaps Putin has been stringing him along.

Trump’s turnaround was all-the-more-remarkable given that less than a fortnight ago, he had renewed his entirely false claims that it was Zelensky who started the conflict.

“You don’t start a war 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles”, he exclaimed at the White House on 15 April. “When you start a war, you got to know you can win.”

Yet by Saturday night, the power of being the most recent voice in Trump’s ear appeared to have secured Zelensky a hardening of the US President’s position towards Putin.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, recent history suggests that Trump may soon revert to type, especially once his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, weighs in.

Witkoff met Putin at the Kremlin on Friday with a broad smile and no public criticism of Russia’s Wednesday night attack on Kyiv, the deadliest in almost a year.

For Trump’s interlocuters, both foreign and domestic, the importance of being the last voice he hears on any issue is already well chronicled.

His global trade war has seen battle engaged between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who favours a negotiated end to the tariff barriers Trump put into place against China and virtually all other exporters to the United States, and Trade Adviser Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the two main apostles of protectionism within Trump’s inner circle.

Whenever the President waxes lyrical about the possibility of using tariff revenues to replace income tax as the government’s main funding source, observers can be certain that Trump has recently spoken with Narvarro or Lutnick, or possibly both of them.

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'He has to be dealt with': Trump threatens Putin after latest attacks on Ukraine

The President’s mass deportations also sparked similar efforts to influence Trump by members of his top team.

A so-called “MAGA Civil War” broke out earlier this year when Elon Musk argued that migrants are the lifeblood of Silicon Valley, while White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was drawing up his plans for the mass deportations of at least one million people this year alone.

Trump has dissembled on the issue of whether skilled workers should be included in his deportation maw, at times even indicating that foreign students graduating from American universities should be fast-tracked for permanent legal residency in the United States, a position that many of his far-right supporters oppose.

Access to any American president is always considered a priceless commodity in Washington. But with Trump, the power of access is blunted or sharpened by its timing.

As Zelensky discovered on Saturday, getting a few quiet moments with the US leader away from the klieg lights and live television cameras can provide an opening to shift Trump’s position.

But cementing that shift in place will prove a complicated affair, given the line of other men and women waiting for their chance to whisper into the President’s ear.

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