Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Ukrainian and European leaders’ big White House meeting, thawing relations between India and China, and deadly flash flooding in Pakistan.
Conditions for Peace
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—backed by an extraordinary delegation of seven European leaders—traveled to the White House on Monday to discuss possible terms for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, following Trump’s meeting in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We need to stop this war, to stop Russia, and we need support from American and European partners,” Zelensky said alongside Trump in the Oval Office. Zelensky later called Monday’s meetings “constructive” and heralded “big unity” at the table.
Several notable conditions for ending the yearslong war were discussed. Among those, all nine leaders in attendance stressed the importance of holding a trilateral summit with Zelensky, Trump, and Putin, though French President Emmanuel Macron added that a quadrilateral meeting that also included the Europeans would likely be necessary as a follow-up. Trump suggested that a trilateral meeting could take place in the next week or so, though Moscow has not publicly agreed to this format.
Trump also expressed an openness to potentially providing Ukraine with U.S. security guarantees as part of a final peace deal—a major request of Kyiv and its European partners, who have argued that such protections are needed to ensure a lasting peace both within Ukraine and in Europe at large. Trump said that Putin had agreed during their summit in Alaska last week to allow Ukraine to have some security guarantees.
It is unclear what these guarantees may look like; however, several European leaders referred to them as “Article 5” in style (in reference to NATO’s mutual defense clause), and Macron stressed that they must allow for a “credible Ukrainian army for the years and decades to come” and a fair defense burden-sharing between the United States and Europe. When asked if he would be willing to send U.S. troops to help provide security for Ukraine, Trump did not rule it out.
But in a statement on Monday, Moscow vehemently condemned the idea of NATO troops in Ukraine. “We reaffirm our repeatedly stated position on our categorical rejection of any scenarios that envisage the appearance in Ukraine of a military contingent with the participation of NATO countries,” a commentary on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website stated. Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon all NATO membership ambitions, and even Trump recently suggested that Kyiv must be prepared to do so to end the war.
Such a concession is just one of many points of contention between Trump and team Europe. Zelensky and his European allies remain adamant that a cease-fire must first be secured before peace talks can be held. However, Putin has insisted that negotiations can occur without a truce deal—and Trump appears convinced.
“I don’t think you need a cease-fire,” Trump said on Monday. “I’d like them to stop [fighting], but strategically, that could be a disadvantage for one side or the other.” That disadvantage would likely be for Russia, which has secured several battlefield victories in recent weeks and maintains control of roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory. Halting the fighting would allow Ukraine to rebuild its military infrastructure, rest its beleaguered forces, and prepare for future Russian attacks.
Trump has also suggested that Ukraine must cede some Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea, to secure a deal, which Zelensky has long refused.
Still, the public portions of Monday’s historic summit focused largely on areas of agreement instead of remaining disputes—a starkly different tone from Trump and Zelensky’s last White House meeting in February, during which Trump berated the Ukrainian president for being ungrateful.
“Ultimately, this is a decision that can only be made by President Zelensky and by the people of Ukraine, working also together in agreement with President Putin,” Trump said on Monday, referring to a possible peace deal. “And I just think that very good things are going come of it.”
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The World This Week
Tuesday, Aug. 19: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres begins a five-day trip to Japan.
Thursday, Aug. 21: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian concludes a four-day trip to Armenia.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosts Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand.
Friday, Aug. 22: Colombian President Gustavo Petro hosts leaders from the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization as part of the group’s annual summit.
Saturday, Aug. 23: A second recall election is held for seven lawmakers in Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang party. Taiwan also holds a referendum on whether to restart the Maanshan nuclear plant’s second reactor.
Sunday, Aug. 24: South Korean President Lee Jae-myung concludes a two-day visit to Tokyo, during which he will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, before traveling to the United States for a summit with Trump.
Monday, Aug. 25: Zambia hosts health ministers for the 75th session of the World Health Organization’s Regional Committee for Africa.
What We’re Following
Thawing India-China ties. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to New Delhi on Monday and met with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar. The two discussed ongoing border disputes, strategies to reform global multilateralism, and ways to bolster bilateral cooperation ahead of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in China at the end of this month.
The meeting demonstrates a thawing in India-China ties as Washington’s own relationship with New Delhi sours under Trump’s trade war. This month, the White House doubled a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods as retaliation for New Delhi continuing to purchase Russian oil. “India’s dependence on Russian crude is opportunistic and deeply corrosive of the world’s efforts to isolate Putin’s war economy,” White House trade advisor Peter Navarro wrote in the Financial Times on Monday. “If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the U.S., it needs to start acting like one.”
This may explain why India has recently shifted closer to China despite the two regional powers butting heads in the past. Notably, Jaishankar visited Beijing last month for the first time since 2020, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the upcoming SCO summit as part of his first trip to China in seven years, and direct passenger flights between the two countries will resume next month after a five-year pause.
Deadly flooding in Pakistan. Search-and-rescue efforts resumed in northern Pakistan on Monday following days of devastating flash floods. Heavy rain and cloud bursts began last Friday, hitting several northern districts, particularly the Buner district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. More than 300 people have been killed, and at least 150 others remain missing, according to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
Local officials on Monday said that the priority is to now clear roads, set up bridges, and deliver humanitarian aid. Roughly 50 percent of homes in Buner district’s Bishnoi village have been destroyed, and the rest are no longer habitable. But the time to do so may be running out; Lt. Gen. Inam Haider Malik, chair of the NDMA, warned of two more heavy rain spells between Aug. 21 and Sept. 10.
Since late June, torrential rains, flooding, and landslides have killed more than 600 people and injured hundreds more. Scientists suggest that global warming is to blame for Pakistan’s increasingly dangerous monsoon season.
Unprecedented runoff. More than two decades of left-wing power in Bolivian politics appears to be nearing its end after a general election on Sunday signaled growing dissatisfaction with the status quo. Centrist Sen. Rodrigo Paz and right-wing former President Jorge Quiroga won the most votes on Sunday, securing 32.8 percent and 26.4 percent of the vote, respectively. They will now head to a runoff—the country’s first since its return to democracy in 1982—on Oct. 19.
Paz and Quiroga have capitalized on Bolivia’s economic crisis to bolster their presidential campaigns and push out the long-ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS) party. Cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years, fuel scarcity remains rampant, Bolivia’s national currency is in free fall, and inflation rates recently recorded a 34-year high.
This strategy appears to have been successful. The left wing’s favored candidate, Senate President Andrónico Rodríguez, won just 8 percent of the vote, and the official MAS candidate, Eduardo del Castillo, captured a mere 3.2 percent. “Bolivia is not only calling for a change of government; it is also calling for a change to the political system,” Paz said.
Odds and Ends
The Cambridge Dictionary took “inspo” from internet culture, especially TikTok, when adding more than 6,000 new words to its online edition this year. But foreign-policy leaders have also had sway in the game, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was dared to drop the phrase “delulu with no solulu” (which means delusional with no solution) during a speech to parliament. “It’s not every day you get to see words like skibidi and delulu make their way into the Cambridge Dictionary,” said Colin McIntosh, the dictionary’s lexical program manager. (We’re going to let you Google “skibidi” for yourselves; just be warned that the search results might deliver a super creepy image.)
The post Trump, Zelensky Strike Optimistic Tone at White House Talks appeared first on Foreign Policy.
