US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia for Ukraine peace talks, in an extraordinary thaw in relations after a surprise phone call between the two leaders.
In their first confirmed contact since Trump’s return to the White House, the US president said he had held a “lengthy and highly productive” conversation with his Russian counterpart who ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
However, the move sparked concerns that Ukraine would be left out of talks on its own fate, after Trump said Kyiv’s wish to join NATO was not “practical” — a key demand of Moscow.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Trump, who has been pushing for a quick end to the nearly three-year war, denied that Ukraine was being excluded from the direct negotiations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.
“We expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there — and we’re going to meet probably in Saudi Arabia the first time,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office about his plans to meet Putin.
Trump said he expected it to happen “in the not too distant future” and added that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — who played a key role in a Russia-US prisoner exchange this week — would also be involved.
The Kremlin said the call lasted nearly one-and-a-half hours. The two leaders had agreed that the “time has come to work together” and that Putin has invited Trump to Moscow, it said.
Trump took the world by surprise as he announced the phone call on his Truth Social platform earlier, saying he and Putin had “both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” using an unconfirmed figure for the toll in the conflict.
The US president said they had agreed to “work together very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations” and to “have our respective teams start negotiations immediately” on Ukraine.
Trump later called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was not included in the call with Putin.
Zelenskiy said afterward that he had a “meaningful” call with Trump in which he had “shared details” of his talks with Putin.
Trump said after the conversation that Zelenskiy “like President Putin, wants to make PEACE.”
Concern has been mounting in Kyiv and European capitals about the shape of a possible deal.
The French, German and Spanish foreign ministers on Wednesday said that there could be “no just and lasting peace” without the involvement of Kyiv and its European partners.
Zelenskiy is due to meet US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio today at the Munich Security Conference.
See European on page 5
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to