Treasury Secretary Bessent: U.S.-Ukraine Deal ‘Not At Present’ On The Table

 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during an interview over the weekend that the deal the U.S. and Ukraine agreed to prior to last week’s meeting is no longer on the table following the blowup that happened between the Trump administration and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Bessent made the remarks during a Sunday interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” when asked if the deal was still on the table.

“It is impossible to have an economic deal without a peace deal,” he said. “The sine qua non for an economic deal is that Ukrainian leadership wants a peace deal.”

He said that the economic deal was “supposed to be” a building block toward getting a peace deal before the meeting went sideways.

“There were three things that were going to be done,” he said. “There was going to be a press conference, there was going to be a private lunch with 16 of us, and as you can see from Dan Scavino’s post on his X account, we were all ready set up to sign the deal.”

“So it’s unclear now, President Zelensky has thrown off the sequencing, and let me tell you the most tragic part of this … President Trump’s idea for this economic arrangement was to further intertwine the American people and Ukrainian people and show no daylight,” he continued. “To show the Russian leadership that there was no daylight, and President Zelensky came into the Oval Office and tried to re-litigate in front of the world the deal.”

He said that Zelensky should have waited until the private lunch to address any concerns that he had about the deal.

Bessent also set the record straight about nature of the deal that was going to be signed.

“It’s not a minerals agreement. It’s a general economic agreement,” he said. “So calling it a minerals agreement is incorrect.”

He said that the plan was for the European Union to provide the security guarantees that Ukraine needs, not NATO, something he said other European nations were on board with.

“All President Zelensky had to do was come in and sign this economic agreement, and again show no daylight between Ukrainian people and the American people, and he chose to blow that up,” he said.

When asked if the deal was still on the table, he responded: “Not at present.”

WATCH: