President Trump has turned Oval Office meetings with foreign leaders into diplomatic thrill rides, which at times have crashed, a la Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and at other times have been surprisingly smooth sailing.

Photo sprays these days — once brief bursts of cameras and questions before reporters were ushered out — have under Trump been turned into public tests of fealty, often pushing foreign leaders into political corners they would much rather avoid in a stage-managed state visit.

Here’s how the performances of world leaders with Trump have stacked up, from train wreck to seeming success.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

Zelensky typifies the train wreck, and yet it’s unclear how badly the Feb. 28 meeting damaged U.S.-Ukraine relations in the long run.

The meeting itself was disastrous.

Zelensky challenged Vice President Vance’s characterization of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and both Trump and Vance jumped down his throat. Trump called him “disrespectful.” Vance said he was ungrateful. Lunch was canceled.

But Zelensky expressed regret, calls were made, Ukraine agreed to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire with Russia, and, two weeks later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the ball was now in Russia’s court, where it effectively remains.

After calls with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, Trump seemed to back off his demand for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, he suggested Russia and Ukraine would begin direct talks immediately. What these negotiations might look like is far from clear, but both Trump and Pope Leo XIV have suggested the Vatican as a host.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa

Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit was not as difficult as Zelensky’s, but there was a clear effort by the U.S. president to surprise the South African leader. Both the Zelensky and Ramaphosa visits were seen as ambushes by some observers.

Ramaphosa, knowing full well what he might have walked into post-Zelensky, tried Wednesday to get ahead of the elephant in the room by jumping on a question posed to Trump about whether he believed there was a “genocide” of white farmers in South Africa.

The South African leader said Trump’s opinion on the issue would be informed by conversations with the U.S. president’s “friends” in the country, adding later that “criminality” was a problem for citizens of all races.

It didn’t seem to work.

Trump asked his staff to dim the lights and play a video that showed roadside crosses representing farmers killed in recent decades and fiery speeches from South African politicians suggesting violent means of ending Afrikaner domination of agriculture and the economy, a remnant of its apartheid past.

Ramaphosa brought with him to Washington two South African golfing legends, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. They both offered careful comments that suggested there was, indeed, a problem of security in........

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