President Donald Trump and his administration forged ahead with its foreign policy priorities in meetings and calls with heads of state and advanced discussions surrounding the end of the Russia-Ukraine war this week.
Trump spoke with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where leaders agreed to launch negotiations to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
‘We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,’ Trump posted to Truth Social Wednesday after speaking with Putin. ‘We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now.’
‘I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, to lead the negotiations which, I feel strongly, will be successful,’ Trump said.
Additionally, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent traveled to Kyiv on Wednesday, and Vice President JD Vance also met with Zelenskyy Friday at the Munich Security Conference.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has come under scrutiny for the negotiations, fielding criticism that Ukraine is being pressured to give in to concessions after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that it wasn’t realistic for Ukraine to regain its pre-war borders with Russia.
‘Putin is gonna pocket this and ask for more,’ Brett Bruen, director of global engagement under former President Barack Obama, told Fox News Digital.
But Hegseth shut down comments like these, and told NATO members in Brussels on Thursday: ‘Any suggestion that President Trump is doing anything other than negotiating from a position of strength is, on its face, ahistorical and false.’
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and Trump vowed on the campaign trail in 2024 that he would work to end the conflict if elected again.
Here’s what also happened this week at the White House:
Meeting Jordan’s king
Trump welcomed Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House Tuesday, a visit that comes amid contentious discussions between the U.S. and Arab nations about relocating Palestinian refugees to Jordan and other neighboring Arab countries to rebuild Gaza.
Trump unveiled plans on Feb. 4 that the U.S. would seek to ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip in a ‘long-term ownership position’ to deliver stability to the region during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, Trump’s proposal prompted swift backlash from Arab countries, including Jordan, and Egypt announced plans on Sunday for an emergency Arab Summit to discuss ‘new and dangerous developments’ regarding the resettling of Palestinians on Feb. 27.
When asked how he felt about Trump’s plans for the future of Gaza, Abdullah remained tight-lipped and said he would wait for the Egyptians to take the lead on a proposal moving forward as they negotiate with the U.S.
‘I think let’s wait until the Egyptians can come and present it to the president and not get ahead of us,’ Abdullah said.
Abdullah did reveal plans to accept 2,000 sick Palestinian children to Jordan.
‘I think one of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children that are either cancer children or in a very ill state, to Jordan as quickly as possible,’ Abdullah said. ‘And then wait for … the Egyptians to present their plan on how we can work with the president to work on the cause of challenges.’
Denuclearization talks with China, Russia
Trump floated a joint meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin, claiming he wants all countries to move toward denuclearization.
Trump on Thursday told reporters he plans to advance these denuclearization talks once ‘we straighten it all out’ in the Middle East and Ukraine, comments that come as the U.S., Russia and Ukraine are actively pursuing negotiations to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
‘There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many,’ Trump said Thursday at the White House. ‘You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.’
‘We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive,’ he said.
The U.S. is projected to spend approximately $756 billion on nuclear weapons between 2023 and 2032, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released in 2023.
Cuts to federal workforce
Trump signed an executive order Tuesday instructing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to coordinate with federal agencies and execute massive cuts in federal government staffing numbers.
The order will instruct DOGE and federal agencies to work together to ‘significantly’ shrink the size of the federal government and limit hiring new employees, according to a White House fact sheet on the order. Specifically, agencies must not hire more than one employee for every four that leave their federal post.
Agencies will also be instructed to ‘undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force’ and evaluate ways to eliminate or combine agency functions that aren’t legally required.
The order builds on another directive Trump signed after his inauguration implementing a federal hiring freeze, as well as an initiative from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management offering more than two million federal civilian employees buyouts if they leave their jobs or return to work in person. The White House told Fox News Digital Thursday that more than 75,000 employees have accepted the buyout.
Eliminate the penny?
Trump unveiled plans Sunday to halt production of the penny — but getting that initiative underway requires a few additional steps and possibly congressional approval.
Additionally, while Trump said he instructed the Treasury Department to stop minting them due to their high costs, supporters of the penny claim it’s wiser to evaluate changes to the nickel instead.
‘For far too long, the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. ‘This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.’
In fact, producing pennies is even more expensive than Trump’s numbers. It costs nearly 3.69 cents to mint a single penny, according to a 2024 U.S. Mint report. The coins are primarily made of zinc and then covered in copper.
While the waters are a little murky on the next steps, experts say Congress likely would need to become involved and pass legislation to fulfill Trump’s wishes.
‘The process of discontinuing the penny in the U.S. is a little unclear. It would likely require an act of Congress, but the Secretary of the Treasury might be able to simply stop the minting of new pennies,’ Robert Triest, an economics professor at Northeastern University, told the Northeastern Global News.
Fox News’ Emma Colton and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.