Archive photo: President Trump and President Zelensky meet at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 22, 2026. Official White House photo by Daniel Torok, public domain; cropped. Photo source.
President Trump said Saturday night that he would invite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Miami in December. He made the comment while speaking to reporters.
The remark, delivered shortly before 9 p.m. EDT, is a statement of intent. The remark does not establish that a formal invitation has been sent or accepted. Ukraine is not a member of the G20; its president would attend as a guest of the host country.
Hours earlier, at a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta, Secretary of State Marco Rubio left the question open when asked whether Zelensky would be welcome at the leaders’ summit. “That would be up to the President to decide. I wouldn’t rule it out,” Rubio said, adding that an invitation was more likely “especially if something positive could happen as a result of him attending,” according to the State Department’s transcript of the exchange. Trump’s statement Saturday night appeared to settle the question Rubio had deferred.
The summit itself is six weeks away. Trump will host the G20 leaders in Miami on Monday, December 14, and Tuesday, December 15, according to the State Department’s official logistics notice. Rubio said in Atlanta that he did not know whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would attend: “They haven’t announced that and they haven’t confirmed that.”
A Zelensky invitation would place the leaders of Ukraine and, potentially, Russia in the same American room as the Trump administration presses for a negotiated end to the war. Zelensky met Trump on September 22, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
JBizNews Desk | Washington
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