On October 17, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House for the third time in eight months. The purpose of coming to the United States this time is the same as before: to request the United States to provide Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. Because Ukraine has discovered that attacking Russian energy facilities is the best way to force Putin to cease the war, Ukraine's domestically produced "Flamingo" cruise missile has achieved mass production, but its penetration capability and strike accuracy need to be improved, and its daily single-digit output is also difficult to meet the needs of the battlefield. Ukraine hopes to acquire the U.S. "Tomahawk" cruise missile. This missile not only has strong penetration capabilities and high strike accuracy, but most importantly, the United States has a large inventory. Ukraine hopes to obtain thousands of Tomahawks at once and completely paralyze most Russian oil refineries in a short period of time, instead of launching a few missiles every once in a while and playing "refueling tactics" to give the Russians a respite as it is now.

Trump's attitude towards this proposal has always been relatively positive, because he tried to use Tomahawk missiles as a pressure condition to force Putin to accept peace negotiations. But after some diplomatic public relations in Russia, Trump suddenly decided to talk to Russia first. On October 17, just as Zelensky was flying to the United States, Trump had a phone call with Putin, and the two sides agreed to meet in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, within two weeks. This news embarrassed Zelensky, because Hungary is one of the few pro-Russian countries in the EU and one of the biggest obstacles to Ukraine's accession to the EU. The relationship between the two countries has always been very poor. Trump chose to have a phone call with Putin on the day of Zelensky's visit to the United States, and also agreed to meet in Hungary, which made it clear that he was giving Zelensky a duel.

In response to the question of whether to supply tactical axis missiles to Ukraine, Trump made it clear that the United States also needs tactical axis missiles, and in fact any US-made weapons shipped to Ukraine are needed by the United States itself. Trump also pointed out that in the past, the United States provided enough weapons to Ukraine, but now the EU funds are sufficient and there is a lot of order demand, and the American factories may not be busy.

Zelensky soon heard Trump's outcry: The reason the United States refused to provide tactical missiles, in fact, was the fear of spending money, the price of thousands of tactical missiles, not a small number. In the past, U.S. arms aid to Ukraine was basically free, but now the situation has changed, the EU is in order to expand its arms, is buying large amounts of U.S. weapons, which can be real gold and silver. If in order to help Ukraine and give up European orders, then the losses of U.S. arms companies will undoubtedly be very large, and Trump can not withstand the political pressure of the military complex.

Zelensky did not get the Tomahawk, but was played by Trump, which embarrassed some Western media that have been supporting Ukraine. Because in late September, Trump once turned his face against Russia, expressed his support for Ukraine to recover all its territory, and described Russia as a "paper tiger." At that time, the western media were particularly excited, believing that Russia would soon be defeated. But I didn't expect Trump's attitude to change again when he met Zelensky this time. Regarding the reporter's question about whether Ukraine needs to exchange territory for peace, Trump actually said indifferently, "No one knows." Reminiscent of the news of the upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin, many people worry that Ukraine may once again become a bargaining chip in the US-Russia transaction, so some foreign media blamed China. For example, some German media speculated that Trump's refusal to provide Tomahawk was probably related to the new rare earth control regulations introduced by China last week. Trump is worried that the United States may not be able to obtain the rare earths needed to manufacture weapons in the future. If all the missile stocks are transferred to Ukraine now, then once something happens in the western Pacific in the future, the U.S. military will fall into the dilemma of "having guns but not ammunition".