The Group of 7 summit in France was intended to focus fresh attention on the war in Ukraine, which has largely fallen off President Trump’s radar since the start of the war with Iran.
On Tuesday, President Trump dashed those hopes, making it clear at the summit that the Ukraine conflict, which he once said he could end in 24 hours, was no longer high on his priority list.
“Look, we have nothing to do with it,” Mr. Trump said of the war.
“It has no impact on us, other than we sell weapons” to Ukraine, he added. “We’re thousands of miles away.”
Mr. Trump’s remarks underscored a new security reality for U.S. allies in Europe, who for eight decades relied on American protection until the Trump administration made it clear that they should do more to defend themselves.
Mr. Trump said he had met with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, at the summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, where the two leaders also participated in a discussion with other world leaders about the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Trump described the meeting with Mr. Zelensky as “very good” and said he would meet with him again later. But asked whether he would have a “special focus” on Ukraine, Mr. Trump made it clear that he would not.
Though the Iran conflict would soon be “in the rear view,” Mr. Trump said, he was still for now “focused on Iran.”
Mr. Trump did, however, provide Ukraine some welcome news.
Now that he had reached a deal that could open the Strait of Hormuz, Mr. Trump said, he was more willing to reimpose sanctions on Russian oil. The administration temporarily lifted the penalties earlier in the year as it scrambled to contain energy prices that had soared because of the war in Iran.
The Trump administration made a renewed push in late 2025 to broker a deal to end the war between Moscow and Kyiv, which began in February 2022 with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The mediation effort failed after Ukrainians accused Mr. Trump, who has long spoken warmly of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, of proposing terms that Ukrainians said were too favorable to Russia. Earlier this week, Mr. Trump praised the Russian president for not interfering in his blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in an interview with The New York Times.
Since the start of the year, Mr. Trump has turned his attention to initiating and solving other conflicts, including in Venezuela and Iran.
Mr. Trump cast U.S. involvement in Ukraine more as a humanitarian mission than as an effort to protect an ally, citing the number of casualties in both Ukraine and Russia as the reason he wanted to bring it to a close. Mr. Trump spoke to Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Putin on Sunday before he departed to attend the summit.
Mr. Zelensky, addressing reporters separately on Tuesday, said that he had told the other world leaders at the summit that his nation urgently needed air defense missiles. He added that he hoped that Ukraine had the backing of all leaders in the Group of 7. Separately, he released a video statement saying that Ukrainian drones had targeted an oil refinery in Moscow, about 10 miles from the Kremlin.
William B. Taylor Jr., who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009, said he hoped a pause in the fighting in Iran would encourage the Trump administration to provide more military assets, including Patriot missiles.
“Now is the time for the Americans to resume support, strong support, because it’s in our interest,” he said.
Dr. Liana Fix, a senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, said any renewed effort from Mr. Trump to engage in the Ukraine negotiations might worry European officials because they see him as too favorable to Russia.
“The Russians are hoping that with Trump getting involved, it can be an easy way out for them,” she said.
Marc Santora contributed reporting from Kyiv.
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