Zelensky wants a do-over, but it may be too late for that. The White House is already signaling that the agreement on the table two weeks ago won't be sufficient. NBC News reports that Trump has made clear in private that he wants more from Zelensky as a consequence of derailing the previous meeting and the apparent agreement over the mineral-rights deal:

As U.S. and Ukrainian officials prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia this week, President Donald Trump has privately made clear to aides that a signed minerals deal between Washington and Kyiv won’t be enough to restart aid and intelligence sharing with the war-torn country, according an administration official and another U.S. official.

Trump wants the deal, which would give the United States a stake in Ukraine’s mineral resources, signed. But he also wants to see a change in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s attitude toward peace talks, the officials said, including a willingness to make concessions such as giving up territory to Russia. Trump also wants Zelenskyy to make some movement toward elections in Ukraine and possibly toward stepping down as his country’s leader, the officials said.

Is that actually a change, though? Or is that Trump reacting to Zelensky's outburst? The whole point of the mineral-rights development deal was to give the US a real investment in Ukraine sovereignty so as to facilitate a negotiated end to the war. Trump understood that, and Zelensky's arrival in Washington two weeks ago led Trump to think that Zelensky understood it too. Any negotiated settlement will have to account for Russian control of ethnic-Russian territories in Ukraine, which has been reality since 2014.

There's no point in a US investment in Ukraine if Zelensky won't even discuss territorial concessions. Zelensky made it clear two weeks ago that he wants US troops to help him push Russia out of the Donbas and Crimea, an option that even Joe Biden flatly rejected for three years. The US is not going to start World War III to keep ethnic-Russian enclaves in Ukraine, not under Trump and not under any American president. After three years of stalemate, Russia isn't going to get pushed out of those areas, and the people who live there may well want Russian leadership anyway.  

The bigger change may be the demand for new elections. The US hasn't pressed this issue before Zelensky's eruption in the Oval Office, but it's about to become an issue now, in part because the Trump administration wants a test to see whether Zelensky's refusal to consider territorial concessions is the position of the Ukrainian electorate, or just Zelensky's personal position. And in part, it's now an issue because Trump and his team want a different partner in this relationship -- not surprising, since Zelensky soft-campaigned for Kamala Harris last fall in an incredibly poor exercise of judgment. 

Newsweek hears the same about the private expectations of how the Jeddah talks should go. Ukrainian negotiators hope to build momentum by offering a partial cease-fire up front and the offer of negotiation over terms after it starts. In exchange, they want a restoration of military aid from the US, which Trump suspended after the Oval Office fiasco:

Trump has expressed optimism about the talks, telling reporters on Air Force One that there would be progress. This was a sentiment echoed by Zelensky in his nightly address Sunday, in which he said he hoped there would be results.

However, Washington wants to see if Tuesday's meeting shows Kyiv is ready to make material concessions to Russia to end the war and improve ties with the Trump administration, Reuters reported citing unnamed officials.

Officials told the U.K. newspaper Financial Times that Ukraine will try to persuade the U.S. to resume intelligence and military support by convincing Trump that Zelensky wants a swift end to the war.

Kyiv would propose a partial ceasefire with Russia for long-range drone and missile strikes and combat operations in the Black Sea if Washington reverses its decision to freeze intelligence sharing and weaponry supplies, the newspaper reported.

Trump already faces pressure at home to restore the aid. Lindsey Graham called the cutoff a dangerous step that could create damage to American credibility that would be "worse than Afghanistan":

In an interview on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream, Graham spoke about the pause on intelligence.

"The goal is to end the war honorably and justly. You know Zelensky blew it in the White House. We've been working on this minerals deal for a very long time, but we are where we are. Yeah, I am worried about cutting off intelligence and weapons to Ukraine as long as the fighting is going on. If we pull the plug on Ukraine it would be worse than Afghanistan. I don't think President Trump has any desire to do that but until we have a ceasefire, I would give Ukraine what they need in terms of intelligence and weapons to defend themselves," the senator said.

Most of this percolates in private. Publicly, the White House is keeping its options open:

“As President Trump demonstrated by reading President Zelenskyy’s message at the joint session, the Ukrainians have made positive movement. With meetings in Saudi this coming week, we look forward to hearing more positive movement that will hopefully ultimately end this brutal war and bloodshed,” White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said when asked about Trump’s requirements.

The ball is Zelensky's court, or perhaps a little more accurately, in Ukraine's court. The US is willing to invest in their sovereignty in the less-provocative method of literal investments, and to use that as leverage against Russian imperialism, but we're not going to fund and support endless war against a major nuclear power. The only realistic end to this war may not be perfect justice, which would punish Vladimir Putin for his war of aggression against a peaceful neighbor. But an outcome that retains Ukrainian sovereignty for the ethnic Ukrainians that also brings an end to a war that could still escalate in unpredictable ways is likely the best outcome we can get -- and "we" includes the Ukrainians as well as the US.

If Zelensky's still not willing to negotiate on the basis of reality, though, look for further alterations of the deal. And he won't like where that leads, a revelation that Zelensky seems to have belatedly experienced. Maybe he watched Robot Chicken back in the day. 

Update: This probably helped:

Late last month, Zelensky got into a shouting match with Trump on camera after he interrupted JD Vance's response to a reporter question. The heated exchange cut short the visit as Trump and Zelensky removed.

Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed in an interview with Fox News that “Zelensky sent a letter to the president. He apologized for that whole incident that happened in the Oval Office."

“I think that it was an important step and there’s been a lot of discussion between our teams and the Ukrainians and the Europeans who are relevant to this discussion as well," he added.

At the very least, it can't hurt. But unless Zelensky is prepared to negotiate a settlement, it's not going to change much.