‘Our Guy in the White House’: Harvard Experts Say Trump-Zelensky Confrontation Was a Win for Putin

After U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance staged a tag-team humiliation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at an Oval Office press conference last week, Harvard experts on foreign relations and Ukraine called the spectacle “blatantly absurd and offensive” and “a huge disappointment” for the future of U.S. diplomacy.

Trump and Vance berated Zelensky as they discussed a prospective deal to exchange Ukrainian minerals for American aid. The exchange escalated into a confrontation over Trump’s suggestion that U.S.-Russia rapprochement to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and Zelensky left the White House with the minerals deal still unsigned.

Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics Fellow Ann M. Simmons, a longtime journalist covering Russia, said the exchange was a clear win for Russia.

“Russians were popping bottles of champagne,” Simmons said. “Read state media, watch the television shows from the Kremlin mouthpieces — what you were hearing and seeing was a narrative that, ‘We have our guy in the White House.’”

Professor of Ukrainian History and Ukrainian Research Institute Director Serhii Plokhii said the meeting was a missed “opportunity to demonstrate unity.”

“The only side that can benefit there is, of course, the aggressor: the Russian Federation,” he added, calling the exchange “a huge disappointment” for the relationship between U.S. and Ukraine.

Former HKS Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. said the confrontation was a strategic move for Trump.

“He wanted to put pressure on Zelensky so that he could get this vaunted peace deal,” he said. “In other words, it wasn’t an accident — or as some people would put it, Zelensky fell into their trap.”

“I think Putin has played Trump brilliantly,” Nye added. “I mean, he’s taken a narcissist and played him like a fiddle.”

Experts were split on the future of the minerals deal. Some, including Simmons and Nye, said moving forward with the deal may be advantageous for Ukraine — Simmons said the presence of U.S. “ventures, enterprises, infrastructure, personnel on the ground in Ukraine” could make Russia more reluctant to pursue military action.

Others cautioned of the minerals deal’s lack of realistic prospects, pointing to remaining uncertainty about the amount and accessibility of mineral resources. HKS professor Matthew A. Baum called the deal “a symbolic agreement as much as a tangible one.”

Many of the seven experts interviewed for this article said the March 1 press conference made them concerned about the U.S. government’s willingness to prevent forthcoming Russian military action in Ukraine.

“My hopefulness for the United States backing Ukraine in this war was obviously reversed,” said Government Professor Daniel J. Epstein ’99.

Mark N. Kramer, director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies’ Cold War Studies program, said he “found it absolutely shameful to listen to what Trump and Vance were saying” and described Trump’s words as “blatantly absurd and offensive.”

Under Trump, he added, “the whole venture of dealing with the Russia-Ukraine war is hopeless.”

“I hope that this phase in U.S. foreign policy will pass before Trump leaves office,” Kramer said. “But I’m not convinced of it. That means that there is a great deal of damage that’s going to be done.”

Nye said he would not be surprised to see more confrontational approaches to diplomatic conversations during Trump’s second term.

“Trump doesn’t place as much emphasis on institutions and alliances, or on the niceties or traditional approaches to diplomacy, and places much more emphasis on shock tactics,” he said.

Former HKS Dean Graham T. Allison wrote in a statement that Trump’s behavior and the Oval Office altercation only made the prospects of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship more nebulous.

“With new shock and awe from the disrupter in chief almost every day, our crystal balls get cloudier and cloudier,” he wrote.