Trump-Putin Call Reframes Tomorrow's Zelenskiy White House Visit

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This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation’s capital. Today, national security editor Iain Marlow looks at President Donald Trump’s call with Vladimir Putin and the impact on his meeting with Ukraine’s leader. Sign up here. Email our editors here.

Face-to-Face

Everything seemed in place for tomorrow’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Then Trump announced he and Russian leader Vladimir Putin had just had a “very productive” phone call and soon would be having a second face-to-face summit on ending the war in Ukraine, this time in Budapest. Now things just look kind of awkward.

Ukraine had delegations fanning out across the halls of power in Washington ahead of Zelenskiy’s Oval Office visit. The Ukrainian leader was already in Washington and meeting with US defense companies about air defense systems.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine's president, at a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Russia hit Kyiv with a massive drone and missile attack that left parts of the capital without power and disrupted water supply as Moscow targets energy infrastructure ahead of winter. Photographer: Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg — Zelenskiy at a news conference in Ukraine last week.

They were trying to lay the groundwork for what they hoped would be newfound US buy-in for ending Russia’s war, now in its fourth year.

Ukrainian officials were insisting they weren’t just asking for US largess, but offering up incentives, as well. The war-torn country wanted to buy loads of US energy in the form of liquefied natural gas, Bloomberg reported. And Ukraine would also share their hard-earned experience manufacturing armed drones on the cheap, which have allowed them to bedevil a much larger adversary.

It seemed well-timed, too.

Senior Republicans in Congress, who long ago tired of sending Ukraine money for a never-ending war, were saying it was time to get tough on Russia with sanctions legislation that’s languished for months. And Trump, whose high-profile Alaska summit with Putin in August got the US nothing, also seemed fed up with the Russian president. He suggested he could sell Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine to be used against Russia.

Trump also is basking in the afterglow of having brokered an accord to end the conflict in Gaza – however tenuous it now looks – and seemed primed to turn his attention back to Ukraine. Zelenskiy suggested he was counting on it.

“We expect that the momentum of curbing terror and war that succeeded in the Middle East will help to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” he posted on X after Trump announced his Putin call.

For Europeans, who grimaced at the red carpet Trump laid out for Putin in Alaska in August, there was a sense of déjà vu – that Trump was again falling into a trap set by a wily ex-KGB agent trying to buy time for Russia to keep pummeling Kyiv into eventual submission.

For Ukraine, the stakes for tomorrow’s White House meeting just got higher. — Iain Marlow

Don’t Miss

Trump’s tariff war alienated longtime US allies and gave China an opportunity to woo the world. Now Beijing’s unprecedented export controls on the rare-earth supply chain are sparking a global pushback.

Trump threatened Hamas with reprisals if the group continued killings inside of Gaza, saying that such action violated the ceasefire agreement he helped broker with Israel.

A federal appeals court refused a request by the US government to pause a judge’s order that blocked Trump from deploying National Guard troops to Chicago.

Banks will no longer be expected to detail how they manage climate-related financial risk, following pressure from Trump and Republican lawmakers who say climate risk has unduly influenced financial regulation.

The US budget deficit declined slightly for the 2025 fiscal year as tariff revenue hit a record high, though the pace of borrowing remains historically elevated at a time of economic expansion and financial stability.

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned of risks in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s plan to bolster Argentina’s currency with a $20 billion lifeline, given the country’s “troubled history of loan defaults.”

The nation’s largest business lobbying group sued the Trump administration over its changes to the visa system for skilled foreign workers, teeing up a fresh battle between corporate America and the president.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said officials can keep lowering interest rates in quarter-percentage-point increments to support a faltering labor market, while Stephen Miran continued to advocate a larger reduction.

The Agriculture Department is warning states that funding for food stamps that millions of Americans rely on will run out next month if the partial government shutdown continues.

A Washington man charged with throwing a sandwich at a federal agent is seeking to dismiss what his lawyers call the “vindictive” prosecution, a hard-to-win strategy that’s come up in other recent high-profile cases.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who’s made no secret of his wealth even as he’s raised his national profile within the Democratic party, disclosed that he won $1.4 million while playing blackjack.

Watch & Listen

Today on Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power early edition at 1 p.m., host Joe Mathieu interviewed Nadia Calvino, president of the European Investment Bank, about bolstering the European Union’s defense infrastructure and looking ahead to rebuilding Ukraine.

On the program at 5 p.m., Joe and Julie Fine talk with Democratic Representative Sharice Davids of Kansas about the shutdown and the so-called No Kings protest this weekend.

On the Trumponomics podcast, host Stephanie Flanders, Bloomberg’s head of government and economics, speaks with Jason Furman, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in the Obama administration, and Rupert Harrison, former adviser to UK Chancellor George Osborne, about the global surge in government debt and why investors still seem unfazed, especially when it comes to the US. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Chart of the Day

The federal government is holding up US economic indicators, including the retail sales report for September that had been scheduled for release today by the Census Bureau. That’s pushing economists, policymakers and investors to parse alternative data to get a bead on consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of US economic activity. Private-sector sources including Bloomberg Second Measure, which analyzes credit and debit card data, largely suggest consumer demand moderated last month after a vigorous stretch of spending this summer. — Mark Niquette

What’s Next

Existing home sales for September will be reported by the National Association of Realtors on Oct. 23.

The University of Michigan’s final read of consumer sentiment for the month will be released Oct. 24.

The summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations opens Oct. 26 in Malaysia.

The Federal Reserve’s rate-setting committee meets Oct. 28-29.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit opens Oct. 31.

Seen Elsewhere

Some 6,000 truckers who didn’t pass English language tests administered along their routes have been taken off the road, the Washington Post reports, leading to concerns about driver shortages.
Many soccer fans eager to attend next year’s World Cup in the US have been dismayed by the prices, which can be far higher than at the last World Cup, in Qatar, NPR reports.
The Department of Homeland Security has spent at least $51 million in taxpayer money on politically tinged advertising thanking thanking Trump for securing the US border, Axios reports.