WSJ What’s News - Vance Threatens Military Action to Push Russia on Ukraine Deal

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

A.M. Edition for Feb. 14. Vice President JD Vance tells the Journal that the U.S. could send troops to Ukraine if Moscow fails to negotiate to end the war there in good faith. But President Trump’s decision to hold direct talks with Russia is a win for President Vladimir Putin, and WSJ reporter Matthew Luxmoore says the Kremlin leader is in a position to play the long game. Plus, more than 200,000 federal workers become the focus of a new round of Trump administration layoffs. And TikTok returns to the Apple and Google mobile-app stores in the U.S. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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A new round of U.S. government layoffs with potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs on the line. Plus, Xi and Temu urge suppliers to shift operations out of China so they can keep selling to Americans, and will recap a whirlwind week of diplomacy as the U.S. pushes for an end to the war in Ukraine. It does look like things could move fairly fast at this stage. The one big wild card here is how long it will take to actually arrange a deal.

Putin understands that he can play the long game in Ukraine. It's Friday, February 14th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are set to meet today in Munich capping a busy week of U.S. diplomacy to spur peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. In an interview with the journal, Vance said the U.S. wants to persuade Russia that it

will get more at the negotiating table than on the battlefield, and he threatened to hit Moscow with sanctions or potentially send U.S. troops to Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to negotiate an end to the war in good faith. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, this week sought to temper Ukraine's expectations going into potential negotiations, saying it was unlikely to emerge from talks as a NATO member, or with its borders returning to how they looked before Russia initially invaded the country in 2014.

While here to break down how the US is approaching future peace talks, I'm joined by journal reporter Matthew Luxmore. First off Matthew, do we know how all of this is going over in Moscow? Russia's line has been pretty firm about what it is they want to see. Russia's line all along has been, let's meet the two of us, me, President Putin and President Trump of the United States and hash this out, essentially. Let's make a deal over Ukraine that doesn't involve the Ukrainians, that doesn't involve the Europeans. It's a kind of analog to this World War II era conference where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met and figured out

essentially the fate of Eastern Europe. This is something that Putin wants. He wants a deal that goes beyond Ukraine. He wants a deal that is kind of a sweeping geopolitical pact, setting out essentially a sphere of influence for Russia in Eastern Europe. That is his maximalist position going into these talks. And it's a victory for him, this agreement from the US side for a direct meeting, direct talks with Russia. In terms of that Russian sphere of influence, Putin would want some caps, it sounds like,

on Ukraine's ability to defend its territory in the future, but also how the US would be involved in that region? At an absolute minimum, Russia would want a full disarmament of Ukraine, a complete cessation of US military aid to Ukraine, and a kind of neutered neutral Ukraine that is neutral formally, or at least officially, but really is Moscow friendly government that Putin can quite easily control. But really it goes beyond Ukraine for Russia. This is an opportunity to make a new arrangement over Eastern Europe. It's unlikely that he will get that.

But the statements from Trump's administration recent days have suggested that they are not going to be revealing their cards. And the Vance statement yesterday to the journal suggests that at least one of the things they're looking at is a carrot and stick approach towards Russia, where on the one hand, they are willing to meet with the Russians, which of course, Biden's administration was not willing to do. They prefer to try and isolate Russia. But at the same time, they're not going to give the Russians everything they want immediately. Nat. Matthew, that decision to engage with Putin has drawn criticism from Kiev and its

European allies, has it not? Matthew. Ukraine really, Zelensky in particular, he really fears this nightmare scenario where the future of Ukraine is figured out by these far larger countries. You know, senior Trump administration officials, including Trump himself, have said that Ukraine will not be frozen out of those talks. But it really remains very unclear how involved Ukraine will be. And that is a big concern for Kiev. And there's some daylight even between US officials on the extent of American support

to defend Kiev, right? The Vice President telling the Journal yesterday US troops in certain scenarios could be deployed to Ukraine, let's say if Russia doesn't engage in negotiations in good faith, and yet that's something just the prior day that the Defense Secretary had ruled out. Yeah, this is kind of a policy of what defense analysts call strategic ambiguity. Not laying out your cards, keeping your adversary guessing, which seems to be what they're engaging in. Zelensky has been trying to curry favor with Trump by tapping into this transactional nature of the former real estate magnate who is now US president by saying that Ukraine could

offer up access to the vast mineral resources it has in the country. So for Trump, the bottom line is we are willing to keep providing military aid that is an essential lifeline for Ukraine's survival, but we're not going to do it for free. Finally, what comes next here? We heard from the president on Wednesday saying he's likely to meet with Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia at some point for one-on-one talks, though when that would happen is unclear. As you write, any peace talks would also be likely to take a very long time, and meanwhile,

the war hasn't let up. No, the Russian forces are moving forward. The defense experts say they have enough manpower and military equipment to keep going for the next year to 18 months at least. So from Russia's perspective Putin understands that he can play the long game in Ukraine. His forces can keep moving forward and taking land that he will essentially keep in any peace deal because the Ukrainians have shown that unfortunately not able to push the Russian forces back on the battlefield. So

the war has certainly not let up and perhaps in the interim as these talks move forward in a gesture of good faith, the Russians might agree to some kind of ceasefire, but they will want guarantees that aid to Ukraine will not continue flowing. I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal reporter Matthew Luxmore. Matthew, grateful for the update. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Coming up, the rest of the day's news, including government layoffs and the return of TikTok to Apple and Google's U.S. app stores.

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Invest with RBC Today. Federal workers who have been on the job for less than a year are being targeted in a new round of layoffs in Washington. According to the Office of Personnel Management, more than 200,000 employees, constituting nearly 10 percent of the civilian federal workforce, fit that definition. It isn't immediately clear how many of them have been fired. Those so-called probationary workers at the U.S. Forest Service, the Energy Department, and the Office of Personnel Management were pushed out yesterday, according to federal worker union staff and people familiar with the matter.

Others were dismissed earlier in the week. Agencies across the federal government submitted lists of probationary employees last month, with the likes of the FBI gathering the names of more than 3,600 people, including more than a thousand special agents. Fourteen state attorneys general are suing to challenge the authority of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, saying that the actions they've taken without the consent of the Senate are unconstitutional. The suit seeks a restraining order, barring Musk and Doge from issuing orders beyond the department and invalidating his prior actions.

Musk earlier this week defended his efforts to cut costs in the government, saying people had voted for major government reform and that he checks with President Trump and agency heads before making decisions. And in a separate case, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to lift a funding freeze on U.S. foreign aid, saying the administration failed to explain why a blanket freeze on congressionally appropriated funding was needed in order to conduct a review of the programs. Apple and Google have added TikTok back to their mobile app stores in the U.S., weeks after removing it to comply with the U.S. ban that President Trump has temporarily halted.

Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office directing the Justice Department to give companies doing business with TikTok assurances that they wouldn't face legal consequences while a deal is negotiated to keep the Chinese-owned social media platform alive in the U.S. However, Apple and Google kept TikTok off of their app stores until now, with analysts saying the companies could still face some legal risks. According to a person familiar with the matter, Apple decided to restore the app after a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Trump said a 90-day delay on the enforcement of the TikTok ban could be extended if necessary, but that he was hopeful a deal could be reached. You know, people have learned it's very popular, and we'll have to probably get approval from China to do it. But we have a lot of people that are interested, and a lot of people, I think China will be interested because it's to their benefit, too. Meanwhile, China-founded bargain e-retailers

Xin and Taimu are looking for workarounds to keep selling to the U.S. before they potentially lose a duty-free provision. With President Trump clearly signaling he wants to end a popular trade exemption for low-value shipments from China that's enabled the platforms to skirt import duties and red tape, Xi'an has been offering incentives to suppliers to encourage them to set up production in Vietnam.

TAMU, meanwhile, has raised prices on its website and increased pressure on suppliers to store inventory in the U.S., its biggest market. Singapore-based Xien denied it was trying to get suppliers to produce in Vietnam. TEMU, which is based in Boston and backed by Chinese e-commerce company PDD, didn't respond to request for comment. And on deck today, pipeline operator Enbridge and drugmaker Moderna are set to Chinese e-commerce company PDD didn't respond to request for comment. And on deck today, pipeline operator Enbridge and drugmaker Moderna are set to report earnings ahead of the market open.

We'll also get January retail sales figures at 8.30am Eastern, followed by industrial production data for the same month at 9.15. And that's it for What's News for this Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Kate Bullivant with supervising producer Christina Rocca, and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a brand new show. Otherwise, have a great weekend and thanks for listening.