In a botched February 28th meeting, Trump and Zelensky engaged in what can be described as spoilt brat diplomacy, as each hoped to get the best of the other, with no room for concessions or compromises.

A shouting match in the Oval Office

There is nothing diplomatic when press statement organized by presidents, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky descend into direct verbal confrontation, as was seen in February 2025. The Trump-Zelensky meeting ended awfully with the formers stating “I think we have seen enough” following a heated verbal confrontation involving both presidents and the US vice president J.D. Vance. In the botched meeting, both Trump and Zelensky engaged in what can be described as spoilt brat diplomacy, as each wanted to use the other to attain selfish ends.

Their attitude stems from a flawed international system that allows the US to take whatever it wants at others’ expense. This system has lately given Zelensky whatever he wanted, making him extremely entitled, but this juvenile diplomacy is unsustainable, as it collapsed when two parties accustomed to gaining everything met and demonstrated inability to understand, concede, or compromise for anyone.

Excessive Entitlement, what could go Wrong?

According to Murphy’s law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and it was a matter of time for Washington’s greed and Kiev’s naivety to breed an embarrassing blunder. Washington’s greed, despite being disguised, runs across administrations and continuously shapes targeted countries for utter exploitation. In a press address held by Barack Obama and Angela Merkel in November 2016, Obama, the then outgoing US president, warned the incoming president Trump against playing ‘realpolitik’ with Putin, clarifying that the US   should not cut deals that hurt people with Russia.

Meanwhile, Obama’s administration was cutting deals that pushed Ukraine further down the path of costly war with Russia. The case of Jo e/Hunter Biden’s sucking life out of Burisma is well known. Similarly, democrats’ profiteering from Ukraine’s war, and the aid given to Ukraine by Biden has been discussed even by Trump. Despite this, Trump, while admitting that the aid given to Ukraine returned to Washington, still wanted Ukraine to pay for it through its rare earth minerals.

Returning Trump was intent on cashing on deadly deals cut by his predecessors to indebt Ukraine through unnecessary war with Russia, by stealing Ukraine’s minerals at the expense of current and future generations. This series of events displayed Americans’ pathological entitlement to other countries’ resources, and Zelensky’s naivety and greed.

Washington’s latest display of entitlement to another country’s resources was on full display in the process leading to the Trump-Zelensky meeting of 28th February. The western media had reported that the meeting would entail Ukraine signing to give 50% control of its minerals to the US. On 26th February, BBC quoting Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal revealed that the US demanded guarantee that it would receive $500 billion from future development of Ukraine’s minerals. Predictably, the BBC left out the context that it was the US that lead Ukraine to the sorry state of affairs it is now, by causing a coup in the eastern European country and propping up a puppet regime that started committing crimes against its Russian-speaking citizens.

Also, successive US regimes have been arming Ukraine, as Trump boasted how he gave Ukraine Javelins while Obama only gave it sheets. Joe Biden also contributed in arming Ukraine, but the US media and leadership likes describing Russia’s intervention as unprovoked and assumes everyone is convinced. Trump, while acting like a mafia boss, was only intent on having Zelensky sign off $500 billion of Ukraine’s wealth to the US, to make the latter profit from the mess it plunged Ukraine into.

The Trump-Zelensky press conference differed significantly from the kind he held with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the same location. Mr Trump and the mainstream media were visibly rushing through to get to the signing part, as he received most of the airtime, while Zelensky got minimal time to spit his anti-Putin vitriol. No serious question came Zelensky’s way save for petty jokes, such as why he does not wear suits, while Trump even got time to brag. However, Zelensky got impatient, largely because he has been given a character role of a spoilt brat through 4 years he was puppeteered to think he was in charge of The West’s proxy war against Russia.

As a result of being allowed to do as he pleased in previous circumstances, Zelensky never thought the west would question, let alone, reject any of the claims he made. He had forgotten that he was a mere puppet, a fact he shamefully learned when J.D Vance rebuked him for canvassing his case to the American Media. Zelensky came to meet Trump expecting to get the best of the US, like the Biden administration had conditioned him. The past and current Ukrainian regimes have been allowed by their puppeteers to do as they pleased without responsibility, for instance attacking ethnic Russian citizens and swearing that their children will sit in basements and that adults will live without pension.

These regimes were also allowed to prevent free exercise of Russian culture and to have NAZI military formations, but the western media still allowed Ukraine to style itself as the victim. The same lies that the western establishment was enthusiastically believing were ignored by Trump and Vance. For instance, Zelensky claimed that Putin violated 25 agreements, ignoring how Ukraine under the supervision of France and Germany violated previous attempts to bring peace such as the Minsk I and II agreements.

He even forgot how the former French and German leaders stated that they signed both the Minsk agreements only to help Ukraine to violate them through creating a larger military. Zelensky appeared convinced that his presentation would use Trump to stop Putin, and must have been surprised to learn that even sharing his wild tales was unacceptable to Vance and Trump when his relevance was only for signing away his country’s wealth.

Trump’s/Zelensky’s way or the Highway? The Highway.

The raw greed of the parties in the Trump-Zelensky meeting and their inability to consider, concede, or even compromise for each other’s interests contributed to the collapse of this meeting and potentially setback diplomacy between both countries. The habit that the west has carefully cultivated in Zelensky, making him a spoilt brat, made him even more brazen in trying to shout down Trump and Vance, and attempt to convince the American media that the war needed to continue.

Then again, Trump, whose country always get what it wants through lies and force, another spoilt brat, thought that the meeting’s only outcome would be quick signing over of Ukraine’s minerals to the US, going as far as claiming that Washington could only invest in ‘reconstruction’ through extracting rare earth minerals from Ukraine. Their verbal exchange is a stark reminder that spoilt brat diplomacy is not sustainable and should be substituted with an equitable, a system that respects the interests of all. Parties should understand and respect others’ interest, and be ready to make reasonable concessions and compromises for others.

Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2025/03/03/unsustainable-spoilt-brat-diplomacy-meets-inglorious-end/