The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | March 4th, 2025: Zelensky Apologizes For Oval Office Dust-Up & Trade War Begins With Canada, Mexico, And China
04 Mar 2025
In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Fallout from Ukraine's Oval Office clash with President Trump continues. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has issued a statement that sounds like an apology—but stops just short. Will it be enough to get U.S. military aid back on track? A new trade war kicks off as President Trump enacts a 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods while doubling duties on Chinese imports to 20 percent. How will this impact global markets and America's economic strategy? To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
It's Tuesday, March 4th. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll kick things off with the latest fallout from Ukraine's Oval Office clash with President Trump. Zelensky has responded with a statement that could be interpreted as an apology. The question is, will it be enough to get U.S.
military aid back on track? Later in the show, a new trade war begins as President Trump follows through on his tariff threat, enacting a 25% levy on Canadian and Mexican goods and doubling duties on Chinese goods to 20%. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. This morning on the PDB, well, we told you about the White House cutting off military aid to Ukraine.
That was fallout, of course, from last week's Oval Office meeting where tensions ran high. Oh, that's putting it diplomatically between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky. The sticking points? Well, Zelensky's perceived resistance to peace negotiations under current conditions and the ongoing back and forth over a critical minerals deal between the two countries.
Since Friday's blow-up, the White House has been firm, no progress on the minerals deal and no further support, unless Zelensky apologized and showed what the White House considers to be a more serious commitment to negotiations. Well, it looks like Zelensky has offered up an apology of sorts and even some steps toward what could ultimately be a negotiated settlement.
In a post to X, Zelensky admitted that his Washington meeting, quote, did not go the way it was supposed to. Well, yeah, that's a fair statement. He called it, quote, regrettable and said, quote, it is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive, end quote.
Now, while not a display of fealty or a full bore mea culpa, it's certainly a shift in tone. Zelensky also reiterated that Ukraine is committed to ending the war, writing that his team is, quote, ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. He added, nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians.
My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. We are ready to work fast to end the war, end quote. Now, that's a notable olive branch, but it wasn't just about diplomacy. Zelensky made sure to remind Washington of Ukraine's gratitude, thanking the U.S.
for its past support and specifically calling out Trump's role in providing Javelin missile systems during his first term. As for concrete steps toward peace, Zelensky laid out a few initial proposals, a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia, a truce in the sky that would halt missile and drone strikes, and a commitment to stop targeting energy and civilian infrastructure.
Zelensky also floated the idea of a truce in the sea as part of the deal's first stage. He emphasized his desire to move quickly, saying Ukraine is ready to work with the U.S. on securing a, quote, strong final deal to end the war.
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