Donald Trump claimed that he would know “in the first two minutes” of his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin if a peace deal could be reached between Russia and Ukraine.
“We’re going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin, and at the end of that meeting, probably in the first two minutes, I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made,” the president told reporters at a press conference Monday.
Asked how he would know, the president replied: “Because that’s what I do. I make deals.”
However, Trump later appeared to contradict himself, after saying that it was “not up to him” if a deal was made or not. “I’m not going to make a deal. It’s not up to me to make a deal. I think a deal should be made for both,” he said.
The president is set to meet with the Russian president Friday in Alaska for the “highly anticipated” meeting, during which the pair will discuss bringing an end to the conflict that has raged since the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in February 2022.
Trump briefly appeared to forget the location of the meeting, telling reporters at the press conference that he would be travelling to Russia for the meeting, instead of The Last Frontier.
He added that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky “could” attend the bilateral, but also appeared to question if it would help a deal be reached.
“He wasn’t a part of it,” Trump said, speaking about the setting up of the talks. “I would say he could go, but he’s been to a lot of meetings. You know, he’s been there for three and a half years. Nothing happened.”
He added that, should a “fair” deal be reached, he would inform the European Union as well as Zelensky, who he would call first “out of respect.”
“And I may say, ‘lots of luck, keep fighting.’ Or I may say ‘we can make a deal,” he said.
Either way, Trump said that a meeting between Putin and Zelensky would be necessary in the future. “Ultimately, I’m going to put the two of them in a room. I’ll be there, or I won’t be there, and I think it’ll get solved.”
Friday’s meeting will be the first between a U.S. president and Putin since 2021, when Joe Biden met him in Switzerland, and marks the first time the Russian president has set foot on American soil in a decade.
His visit is due to go ahead as planned, despite the fact that he faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
Critics have also noted that Alaska was once owned by Russia, who claimed it during the 1770s and sold it back to the U.S. in 1867. Russian traditionalists have long-since demanded the return of the territory.
