Image: President Trump and Vladimir Putin shake hands in Helsinki in 2018. Pic: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Asked if they were, he said: “Hmm, that’s an interesting question.”
The Ukrainians, he said, “will have to make peace”.
“Their people are being killed, and I think they should make peace,” he added.
More worryingly, he seems as prepared as ever to trust Vladimir Putin.
He seems happy to take the word of a man who sent agents to Britain to kill with chemical weapons, who lied repeatedly about his plans to invade Ukraine, and who has murdered in cold blood every rival who dared to challenge him.
“He insisted that if it (the conflict) ends, he wants it to end,” Mr Trump said, as if that was all there is to it.
“He does not want to end it and then go back to war in six months.”
In the same way, Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich in 1938 waving a piece of paper declaring “peace in our time” after winning what he thought were similar assurances from Adolf Hitler.
For Ukrainians, the parallels with 1938 do not end there.
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16:12
Will Trump’s call with Putin bring peace closer?
They are being told even before negotiations start that they will have to give up some of their land that has been taken by brutal force.
Ukrainians compare that with Czechoslovakia being forced to hand over the Sudetenland to Hitler. Chamberlain believed that would be enough to appease Hitler. We all know what followed.
There is nothing in what the Russian president has said to make anyone believe giving him a fifth of Ukraine will be enough to appease him either.
In fact, in speeches, he has been emphatically and explicitly clear time and time again. He wants all of Ukraine because he believes it is part of Russia.
And then he wants the security architecture of Europe refashioned.
And Mr Trump seems to be caving into Mr Putin on that as well, giving into one of the key pre-war demands he made in 2021 before invading his neighbour, the reduction of America’s footprint in NATO in Europe that was declared by US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth in Brussels yesterday.
Trump is surrendering much of the leverage he had over the Russians before talks have even begun. This is from a man who declared in his book The Art of the Deal that leverage is everything in negotiations.
“Don’t make deals without it.”
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1:18
Ukraine getting all land back ‘not realistic’
It is curious and inexplicable. Except that Mr Putin has always appeared to have some kind of hold over Mr Trump.
When they last met in Helsinki, the president sided with Mr Putin over his own spies on the question of Russian election interference.
As a spy in east Germany, Mr Putin was trained in KGB techniques of understanding your enemy and deceiving them.
He has used those skills all his career, not least with George W Bush who famously naively said: “I looked into his eyes and I saw a soul. I trusted him.”
If Mr Trump is persuaded to side with Mr Putin over Ukraine, a dictator will have been rewarded for invading his neighbour. Aggression will have prevailed.
A precedent will have been set that has alarming implications for other countries neighbouring Russia and further afield.
In the east, as he ponders how to seize Taiwan by force, China’s Xi Jinping will be learning lessons too.
The outcome of all this may well not be peace in our time. Quite the opposite.
Worldwide stock markets have plummeted for the second day running as the fallout from Donald Trump’s global tariffs continues.
While European and Asian markets suffered notable falls, American indexes were the worst hit, with Wall Street closing to a sea of red on Friday following Thursday’s rout – the worst day in US markets since the COVID-19 pandemic.
All three of the US’s major indexes were down by more than 5% at market close; The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 5.5%, the S&P 500 was 5.97% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 5.82%.
The Nasdaq was also 22% below its record-high set in December, which indicates a bear market.
Ever since the US president announced the tariffs on Wednesday evening, analysts estimate that around $4.9trn (£3.8trn) has been wiped off the value of the global stock market.
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Mr Trump has remained unapologetic as the markets struggle, posting in all-caps on Truth Social before the markets closed that “only the weak will fail”.
The UK’s leading stock market, the FTSE 100, also suffered its worst daily drop in more than five years, closing 4.95% down, a level not seen since March 2020.
And the Japanese exchange Nikkei 225 dropped by 2.75% at end of trading, down 20% from its recent peak in July last year.
Image: US indexes had the worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. Pic: Reuters
Trump holds trade deal talks – reports
It comes as a source told CNN that Mr Trump has been in discussions with Vietnamese, Indianand Israelirepresentatives to negotiate bespoke trade deals that could alleviate proposed tariffs on those countries before a deadline next week.
The source told the US broadcaster the talks were being held in advance of the reciprocal levies going into effect next week.
Vietnam faced one of the highest reciprocal tariffs announced by the US president this week, with 46% rates on imports. Israeli imports face a 17% rate, and Indian goods will be subject to 26% tariffs.
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China – hit with 34% tariffs on imported goods – has also announced it will issue its own levy of the same rate on US imports.
Mr Trump said China “played it wrong” and “panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do” in another all-caps Truth Social post earlier on Friday.
Later, on Air Force One, the US president told reporters that “the beauty” of the tariffs is that they allow for negotiations, referencing talks with Chinese company ByteDance on the sale of social media app TikTok.
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6:50
Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump
He said: “We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’
“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Image: Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Image: The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.