President Donald Trump kicked off his fourth week in office by attending the Super Bowl in what is expected to be another action-packed work week that could include a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump will land back in Washington, D.C., late Sunday evening after attending the Super Bowl and spending the weekend at Mar-A-Lago. The 47th president hinted that he could hold his first meeting with Zelenskyy since his Jan. 20 inauguration later this week to discuss the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.
‘[Zelenskyy] may meet next week, yeah. Whenever he would like. I’m here,’ Trump told reporters while hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday.
Trump has already met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose nation is in the midst of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas following more than a year of war, and has vowed to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths for both nations as war continues.
‘I will probably be meeting with President Zelenskyy next week. And I’ve… I will probably be talking to President Putin. I’d like to see that war end for one primary reason: They’re killing so many people,’ Trump said during the press conference on Friday.
Trump last met with Zelenskyy when he was president-elect in December during a trip to Paris ahead of the Notre Dame Cathedral reopening after a fire ripped through the Catholic church in 2019.
‘You have 8 or 900,000 Russian soldiers are dead, and very badly wounded. And the same thing with Ukraine, you have probably 700,000 with Ukraine. The numbers they gave are a little bit lower than that. But I believe those numbers aren’t correct. I’d like to see it just on a human basis. It’s terrible what’s going on,’ Trump added of the ongoing war during his comments Friday.
Trump confirmed to the New York Post on Friday that he has spoken to Vladimir Putin as the war continues, but did not divulge many details beyond that Putin ‘wants to see people stop dying.’
Trump suggested earlier last week that Ukraine should strike a deal with the U.S. to provide crucial minerals – such as titanium, lithium, graphite and uranium – in exchange for military aid.
‘We’re putting in hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earths. And I want security of the rare earth, and they’re willing to do [that],’ Trump told reporters at the White House last Monday.
Zelenskyy told the media a day later that he is open to an ‘investment’ from ‘partners who help us defend our land and push the enemy back with their weapons, their presence, and sanctions packages.’
‘And this is absolutely fair,’ he added.
Trump is also expected to meet with the CEO of Nippon Steel this week, which is Japan’s largest steel company. The Biden administration had blocked a nearly $15 billion deal for the Japanese company to buy the American steelmaker, U.S. Steel, with Trump previewing last week that Nippon is now looking to invest in U.S. Steel as opposed to purchasing it.
Nippon Steel ‘is going to be doing something very exciting about U.S. Steel,’ Trump said on Friday. ‘They’ll be looking at an investment rather than a purchase.’
‘Very great company and they’ll work out the details,’ Trump said of Nippon, mistakenly referring to it as ‘Nissan,’ a Japanese car company on first reference. ‘I’ll help. I’ll be there to mediate and arbitrate.’
The president is in the midst of leveraging tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China to bolster border security, end illegal immigration and stem the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. Trump previewed on Friday that this week will include him announcing ‘reciprocal trade’ tariffs on other nations, as opposed to a flat 10% or 20% tariff on other nations, as he has previously threatened.
‘I’ll be announcing that next week, reciprocal trade, so that we’re treated evenly with other countries,’ he told reporters on Friday, saying the announcement should come by Monday or Tuesday. ‘We don’t want any more, any less.’
‘I think that’s the only fair way to do it that way nobody’s hurt,’ the president continued. ‘They charge us, we charge them. It’s the same thing, and I seem to be going in that line as opposed to a flat fee tariff.’
In addition to anticipated foreign relations and international trade announcements and meetings, Trump’s administration is expected to continue its investigations of the federal government’s various agencies as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s quest to suss out internal corruption and government overspending.
Trump’s schedule for the week was not yet released as of Sunday afternoon, beyond attending the Super Bowl before flying back to the White House late Sunday evening.
Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this article.
