It’s nice to hear that President Trump had another “productive” phone call with Vladimir Putin this morning, prior to his meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy at Mar-a-Lago. My question: Has any phone call with a foreign leader, at least those leaders with some cachet, ever been characterized as anything except “productive” by Trump?
I notice that the word in its new iteration has been added to the professional dictionaries of Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff as well.
From what I’ve gathered from these phone conversations, productive can mean anything from “nothing was agreed upon, but we didn’t shout” to “I gave them what they wanted.” The latter definition seems to apply to the word’s usage when it comes to Putin and Russia.
So far, Trump has pretty much agreed to every demand Putin has made regarding a peace deal for the Ukraine-Russia conflict. He’s even given Russia territory they don’t currently occupy, and he’s also limiting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces and the types and numbers of weapons they can possess.
I didn’t see or hear the word “productive” being used to characterize the one-on-one Trump had with Zelenskyy today. After that meeting, Trump referred to the “complicated stuff” involved in negotiating peace agreements. Complicated indeed, since both European leaders and Zelenskyy have pushed back against Trump’s cave-in to Putin’s demands.
For his part, Zelenskyy today said he would hold a referendum to see how Ukrainian citizens feel toward ceding territory. I’m not sure if this is a yes-or-no vote, or one with options — give up this, but not that, etc.
As for Trump’s “productive” negotiations with Putin, the president seems most concerned about ending the war and opening up the Russian economy to American investment (and profits). Problem is, this will require Ukraine to make concessions that it should regard as counter-productive using any definition of productive.
