A draft of an agreement calling for Ukraine to hand over to the United States revenue from natural resources includes new language referring to security guarantees, a provision Kyiv had pressed for vigorously in negotiations.

The reference is vague and does not signal any specific American commitment to safeguarding Ukraine’s security.

A copy of the agreement obtained Wednesday by The New York Times included a sentence stating that the United States “supports Ukraine’s effort to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace.” Previous drafts did not have the phrase on security guarantees.

But, at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Trump put Ukraine on notice that, “I’m not going to provide security guarantees beyond very much.” He added, at the meeting in Washington, “We’re going to have Europe do that.”

It was not clear whether the draft, dated Tuesday, was a final version.

A Ukrainian official briefed on the draft, and several people in Ukraine with knowledge of the talks, confirmed that wording on security had been included in the document. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

The agreement is seen as opening the door to possible continued backing from the United States under the Trump administration, either as aid for the war effort or as enforcement of any cease-fire. Officials in the United States and Ukraine said on Tuesday that a version had been accepted by both sides.

President Trump said on Wednesday that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine would visit Washington on Friday to sign the deal.

Mr. Zelensky, speaking to reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday, said that including mention of security guarantees had been a priority for him in negotiations and was necessary for Ukraine to call the deal successful.

“I really wanted the appearance of at least the phrase ‘security guarantee for Ukraine,’” in the document, Mr. Zelensky said. The phrase, he said, “appeared in point 10 and it is important that it is there.”

He said he was pleased that the deal was not framed as repayment for past assistance. It was important, he said, that in the agreement Ukrainians were not presented as “debtors.”

The draft obtained by The Times showed Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, and Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s economy minister, as the initial signatories.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, spoke about the new phrase about security guarantees in terms suggesting that the United States had not acceded to the request for its inclusion. Mr. Shmyhal said that neither Mr. Zelensky nor other officials in the Ukrainian government would sign the deal if the phrase were omitted, calling it an “integral element” to the agreement on minerals.

Mr. Zelensky had proposed a deal granting the United States access to mineral wealth last fall as a contingency in case Mr. Trump won the American election. But the Ukrainian leader balked at the terms presented earlier this month after Mr. Trump took office.

Mr. Zelensky had pushed hard that a commitment to Ukraine’s security be detailed in the document. In exchange, Ukraine would contribute half of future natural resource earnings to an American-controlled fund.

The Trump administration resisted that request. Officials in Washington argued that security guarantees were implied in Washington’s holding a financial interest in Ukrainian metal ores, minerals, oil and natural gas, and that such an agreement would provide an incentive to prevent Russian occupation of the resources.

The American national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News this past week that, for Ukrainians, U.S. involvement in natural resources was “the best security guarantee they could ever hope for, much more than another pallet of ammunition.”

The draft from Tuesday included earlier phrasing that the United States would take “steps to protect mutual investments,” implying an American commitment to safeguard the sites of resource deposits, some of which are close to front lines.

Mr. Trump has called the deal payback for earlier American aid and had asked for $500 billion. That figure, included in earlier drafts, alarmed officials in Kyiv and was dropped from later versions.

The Trump administration negotiators, the Ukrainian official briefed on the draft said, had strenuously tried to exclude the phrase on security guarantees from earlier versions, arguing that the language was beyond the scope of a negotiation over mineral rights. It was added only in drafts late in the negotiations, the official said.

It was unclear if the new phrasing suggested support for American security guarantees or support for Ukraine’s ongoing diplomatic effort to shore up backing for a European peacekeeping mission and other assurances to safeguard a possible cease-fire.

The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, is scheduled to travel to Washington on Wednesday to present to Mr. Trump a European initiative to field a 30,000-strong peacekeeping force. European leaders have said such a force would nonetheless require an American “backstop” of military assistance, such as American satellite surveillance, air defense or air force support.

Other terms in the draft beyond security remained mostly unaltered from a previous draft on Monday. The Ukrainian government agreed to relinquish half of its revenues from the future monetization of natural resources including minerals, oil and gas, as well as earnings from associated infrastructure such as liquefied natural gas terminals and port infrastructure. The fund would not draw on revenue from already existing natural resource business such as mines and oil wells.

Those revenues would fill a fund where the United States would hold a percentage of ownership and degree of control “to the maximum” extent allowed under American law. It is unclear how that would be interpreted.

In his comments to reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky also touched on the cease-fire negotiations that Mr. Trump has said he will engage in with Russia. The Ukrainian Army would continue fighting, Mr. Zelensky said, unless a cease-fire included security guarantees.

Mr. Zelensky has said he will not accept an agreement without involvement by Ukraine but had not so clearly indicated the Ukrainian Army could continue fighting if a condition were not reached in the talks.

“Ukraine is in an extremely difficult position,” Oleksiy Melnik, a security analyst and co-director of the Razumkov Centre in Kyiv, an analytical group.

“Now Ukraine is under double pressure as one of our key partners, whom we considered a strategic partner, seems to be changing sides,” he said. “What Donald Trump has done so far is something nobody in Ukraine expected. The choice is either Ukraine says no, and faces possible consequences, or Ukraine has to accept” settlement terms of the U.S.-Russian talks.

On a good day in February, Debbie Hartlen might sell one Canadian flag at her workshop in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Now, daily sales have hit roughly 300 flags, and that’s not counting her larger online business.

President Trump’s plan to impose crippling tariffs on Canadian exports is seen as a devastating threat to many Canadian businesses and workers. His warning on trade — combined with his repeated calls for the United States to annex Canada — has the country’s flag makers struggling to keep up with suddenly soaring demand.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Ms. Hartlen, who owns The Flag Shop Nova Scotia. “Thank you, Trump. Who would have thought we’d be saying that?”

The renewed interest in Canada’s maple leaf flag, fueled by intense opposition to Mr. Trump’s idea of making Canada the 51st state and his economic threats, comes as the red and white Canadian banner marks its 60th anniversary.

And for a nation where flag waving is less a part of life than in the United States and flags are generally less conspicuous, the Trump-fueled resurgence of Canadian patriotism has also revived the Canadian flag’s image.

The maple leaf flag, often flown upside down or from hockey sticks, became the defining symbol used by protesters who occupied and paralyzed Ottawa, Canada’s capital, for nearly a month in 2022 in response to Covid restrictions.

As a result, many Canadians have shied away from displaying their national flag out of concern that they would be seen as endorsing the protests.

But things started to change as Flag Day in Canada, which is celebrated on Feb. 15, approached. Usually, the day passes by largely unnoticed. This time, against the backdrop of tariff threats and Mr. Trump’s criticisms of Canada, including referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Governor Trudeau, five former prime ministers have called on Canadians “to show the flag as never before.”

The government held 60th birthday celebrations, which included skaters holding aloft a giant flag down a 19th-century canal in Ottawa that doubles as a giant ice skating rink during the winter. And throughout the country, Canadians are doing something many rarely do: flying flags outside their homes.

L’étendard Flags and Banners, a company based in Quebec City, makes about 25,000 Canadian flags for the federal government and 10,000 more for other customers and uses what is typically the slow winter season to build up inventory leading up to Canada Day on July 1.

This year demand for flags is so high that the company may need to hire extra workers to cope with the surge, said Mario Trahan, one of the company’s owners.

“There’s a peak just before the July 1 but it’s always the same pattern every year,” said Mr. Trahan, whose company has been in the flag business for 30 years. “But we haven’t seen a rush like this.”

Before the current version of the flag was adopted, Canada had spent nearly a century trying to create and agree on a national flag that was not simply carried over from its past as a British colony.

“English Canadians in particular were divided about their identity,” said Forrest Pass, a vexillologist, or flag scholar, at Library and Archives Canada, the national archive. “British imperial identity still loomed large.”

The result, he said, was that Canada first used Britain’s Union Jack, which is officially known as the royal union flag, as its national flag. In 1892, the British Admiralty officially allowed Canadian commercial ships to fly a red flag that was known as the Canadian Red Ensign, with the Union Jack in one corner and a smaller shield of Canada that underwent many design changes.

Soon, the Canadian Red Ensign was being used on land, particularly by the military during World War I, before gaining official status in 1946.

Many Canadians regarded the red ensign as mostly a “place holder,” said Dr. Pass, whose dissertation was on flags.

Various committees at various times considered thousands of proposed Canadian flags, including one, Dr. Pass said, that featured a woman in a bikini.

“It was something of a cottage industry, the production of new flag designs,” he said.

But it was Lester B. Pearson, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his work resolving the Suez crisis and past Liberal prime minister, who ultimately selected the single Maple Leaf design.

But it was a hard sell at first. The debate in Parliament to adopt it was described by one historian as “among the ugliest in the House of Commons history” because of the strong opposition from members of Parliament to diluting British heritage.

But once the debate was settled and the design approved, Canadians quickly warmed to their new flag, Dr. Pass said.

During the Vietnam War, anecdotal stories about American travelers sewing maple leaf patches onto their backpacks before heading abroad became a source of cross-border resentment, particularly given Canada’s strong opposition to the war.

But the protests in Ottawa, which became known as the trucker convoy — and that polls showed most Canadians strongly opposed — hurt the country’s romance with its flag.

“The co-option of the flag by a small segment of the population created a lot of discomfort for Canadians,” said Heather Nicol, the director of the Canadian studies school at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. “A lot of people felt like: ‘Well I don’t know if we want to look at that flag or fly that flag again.’”

Still, in one downtown Ottawa neighborhood that endured the ear splitting, late night air horn honking by protesting truckers, Sam Hudson never took down the four Canadian flags that largely cover the window of the tailor shop he opened 15 years ago after emigrating from Jordan. (There is also a Scottish flag in the window in honor of his first customer.)

“I kept them because they are the symbol for our country,” Mr. Hudson said. “It’s not a symbol for certain people. I respect this flag. It’s a symbol for 40 million people who live in this land.”

Now with Mr. Trump’s denigration of Canada, Mr. Hudson said he wants more Canadians to follow his example and start displaying the flag.

“Everywhere, any time, all the year,” Mr. Hudson said before hemming some trousers. “This is our I.D.”

It was billed as the first step in establishing a representative government as Syria emerged from decades of a brutal, one-family dictatorship.

But for some in Syria, the highly anticipated “national dialogue” that ended on Tuesday night fell far short of those promises. Instead, the two-day conference only added to concerns about the openness of the country’s new Islamist rulers to setting up a genuinely inclusive political process.

“We have a lot of objections to how this happened,” said Ibrahim Draji, a law professor at Damascus University who was among the hundreds of attendees at the conference. “There’s no transparency. There is no clear criteria for who gets invited,” he added.

“I’ve been a professor of law for the past 22 years, and I can tell you that this is not an actual national dialogue,” he said.

As the conference opened on Monday, the participants who gathered at the presidential palace in the capital, Damascus, had high hopes that they were about to be part of a historical event and have a hand in shaping the new political chapter in Syria.

Months earlier, the rebel coalition that seized power after ousting the longtime autocratic ruler Bashar al-Assad had pledged to establish a representative government. The first step, they said, would be a landmark meeting where leadership figures from across the country would, together with the victorious rebels, chart a different course for their fractured nation.

Despite those lofty goals, the conference was hastily organized, with invitations sent out only a day or two before it began. While community leaders, academics and religious figures attended, key groups such as the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led militia that controls much of northeastern Syria were not invited.

And rebel leaders said the recommendations that the conference issued on Tuesday night — including respecting personal freedoms and women’s rights — were not binding. It was unclear what bearing, if any, they would have on the nascent government.

Syria is navigating a once unimaginable period of transition after being ruled by the Assad family for more than 50 years. At the helm of that transition is the interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, whose rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, led the offensive that toppled Mr. al-Assad in early December.

Mr. al-Shara is facing a dizzying array of challenges as he marshals a country whose delicate social fabric and economy were both shredded during nearly 14 years of civil war.

In many ways, the hastily organized conference on Tuesday reflects the competing priorities Mr. al-Shara is juggling as he scrambles to set up a functioning government.

He is under pressure to establish an internationally recognized government quickly to bolster his efforts in negotiating for badly needed financial aid from the international community. Many Arab and Western leaders have conditioned full ties with Syria’s new government — including relief from Western sanctions that have left the economy in tatters — on the creation of an inclusive political process that reflects Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity.

The European Union, which lifted some sanctions on Syria after the rebels seized power, announced on Monday that it was suspending additional restrictions on the country’s banks and on its energy and transport sectors. But European officials have said that relief will be reversed if the rebels form a government that is not consistent with E.U. values.

The urgency to create a new government has produced slapdash efforts, like this week’s conference, that have undercut the legitimacy of the political process in the eyes of some Syrians both at home and abroad.

Many in Syria greeted the fall of the Assad dynasty with elation, hoping it would usher in a more democratic era. While voicing political dissent — an act that was once effectively a death sentence — is now possible, many Syrians’ expectations for radical change have been tempered in recent weeks as Mr. al-Shara has consolidated most government control in his own hands or those of close allies.

“It feels like there’s been a downgrading of their initial promises, of what the new political process is and what the national dialogue would lead to,” said Ibrahim al-Assil, a Syrian adjunct professor of political science at George Washington University.

“Our expectations weren’t very high, but what happened was even more underwhelming than the moderate expectations,” added Dr. al-Assil, who was not involved in the dialogue.

Still, some Syrians, exhausted from more than a decade of civil war and widespread destruction, say that any political involvement, however small, is a welcome change.

“We haven’t been involved in political life or affairs for over 50 years,” said Dana Shubat, 30, an ophthalmologist in Damascus.

“I’m not sure what I was expecting,” she added, “but at least the people have the opportunity — even if it’s small — to voice our opinions on the government.”

Responding to criticism of the conference, Hassan al-Daghim, a spokesman for the event’s preparatory committee, said in an interview that Tuesday’s sessions were just the beginning of what would be an ongoing and inclusive political process that would “involve a wide array of experts.”

So far, neither the preparatory committee nor Mr. al-Shara has offered a detailed plan for continuing the dialogue, for drawing up a new constitution or for creating a system of transitional justice demanded by a public seeking accountability for the crimes of the dictatorship.

Addressing the conference on Tuesday, Mr. al-Shara reiterated his calls for Syrians to “stand together in unity” and help rebuild their nation. But there was a subtle shift in tone from his first address after being named president in January, when he made sweeping pledges about genuine political participation of all Syrians.

Leaders “should not import systems that do not align with the country’s situation” or “implement political dreams that are unsuitable,” Mr. al-Shara said.

“Just as you accept this victory from us, I kindly ask that you also accept the methods used to achieve it,” he added, referring to the rebels’ approach to establishing a government since seizing power.

To many, those comments were seen as a clear message: Even if the next chapter in Syria is inclusive, it will be a far cry from the democratic reform many had long dreamed of.

Conference participants also condemned the Israeli military’s recent incursion into southern Syria. Israel launched new airstrikes on military targets south of Damascus late Tuesday night, according to Israeli officials.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said in recent days that his country will not allow the presence of Syrian forces in the south of Syria, though it remains unclear how the leadership in Damascus will respond to that demand.

The next major litmus test for the new Syrian authorities will be in the coming days when Mr. al-Shara is expected to form a caretaker government. That government will administer the country in the coming years until Syria can hold elections.

Its makeup — and whether it includes representatives beyond Mr. al-Shara’s loyalists — will offer the next major clues as to how he plans to govern.

The structure of the caretaker government “will send a crucial message,” said Haneen Ahmad, a political and human rights activist in Damascus. “It will reflect the current regime’s willingness to be open and work with all Syrians.”

Hamas turned over what it said were the remains of four Israeli hostages early on Thursday, according to the Israeli military, and Israel began releasing Palestinian prisoners, in the latest such exchange during the initial stage of a fragile cease-fire.

Hamas’s military wing on Wednesday afternoon named the four Israelis as Ohad Yahalomi, Itzhak Elgarat, Shlomo Mansour and Tsachi Idan. They ranged in age from 85 to 49 when they were abducted, and their remains were to be swapped for a group of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

Unlike previous handovers, this time, Hamas carried out the transfer without staged displays, which Israel had condemned as “humiliating ceremonies.”

Around the same time on Thursday, a white bus and two cars bearing the emblem of the International Committee of the Red Cross were shown live on Palestinian television departing from Ofer Prison in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the city of Ramallah in the same territory. Dozens of prisoners stepped off the bus. Hundreds more were expected to be released once Israel identified the bodies turned over.

The office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, confirmed that the coffins were handed over to the Israeli military, with Egypt mediating. “A preliminary identification process has now begun on Israeli soil,” his office said in a statement. “The families of the hostages are being continuously updated, and they will receive an official notification once the full identification process is complete.”

Because Hamas had misidentified a female hostage in a previous handover, the Israeli health authorities had said that forensic specialists would attempt to immediately identify the remains. Once they confirmed the identities, the Israeli military was expected to release additional prisoners.

The latest exchange comes as the first phase of the truce, which began in January, draws to a close after 42 days. It was unclear whether serious negotiations on the second phase of the agreement have begun. Israel and Hamas were supposed to start talks by the 16th day of the cease-fire. But there has been little sign of progress despite pressure from U.S., Qatari, and Egyptian mediators, who had hoped any truce would be extended into a more comprehensive resolution to the conflict.

During the first phase, Hamas was to free 25 Israeli hostages and hand over the bodies of eight others in exchange for more than 1,500 Palestinians jailed by Israel. On Saturday, the armed Palestinian group released the last living captives for this stage. Four deceased hostages were also repatriated last week.

But Israel delayed the release of 620 Palestinian prisoners as part of that exchange until Hamas committed to stopping the staged displays before throngs of Gazans during the handoffs. Armed and masked members of Hamas had been releasing the hostages in highly choreographed displays of force and power in which some hostages were made to thank their former captors.

The delay raised questions about how long the truce would hold.

Late on Tuesday, Hamas announced that a deal had been reached for the simultaneous release of the Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the remains of the four Israelis. They were among about 250 people taken hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 others and ignited the war in Gaza.

In response, Israel launched its devastating military campaign against Hamas, which killed more than 48,000 people in Gaza, according to local health officials, whose numbers do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office said mediators had guaranteed that Hamas would hand over the coffins without another release ceremony.

Some of the Palestinian prisoners listed for release were convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. Others — including minors — were arrested without formal charges after Israeli forces swept through Gaza during a ground invasion.

Relatives of the prisoners began gathering in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday. Some had waited in vain for hours last weekend in the occupied territory, when Israel announced it was holding back some of the scheduled prisoner releases.

“We hope to see our brother tonight,” said Suleiman Mardawi, 40, whose brother, Mohammad Mardawi — a member of the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad — was imprisoned in 1999 for attacking Israelis in the West Bank, the brother said. “But we are prepared for anything,” he added, acknowledging the possibility of another last-minute delay.

Early on Thursday morning, Salsabeel Hajj Ahmad, 22, met her uncle, Mohammad Mardawi, for the first time in her life — he was imprisoned before she was born. “I recognized him instantly,” she said, but noted that her uncle was in poor condition.

“Every time someone hugged him, he asked them to be gentle because it hurt,” she said. “Yet he kept smiling.”

The exchange on Thursday may be the last in the first phase of the cease-fire. About 25 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others are still in Gaza, according to the Israeli government.

Amid the uncertainty about the future of truce talks, Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, had been expected in the region on Wednesday in an attempt to move the talks forward. But Mr. Witkoff’s trip has been delayed, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the envoy’s schedule.

Israel and Hamas both have reasons to avoid resuming the war. Hamas wants to give its forces a chance to recuperate and rebuild, whereas Israel would like to bring home the remaining hostages in Gaza.

But the war could still be rekindled.

The Israeli military has already made extensive preparations for a new and intense campaign in Gaza, according to three defense officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely. On Sunday, the Israeli military announced that it had increased “operational readiness in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip.”

The first phase of the cease-fire has been plagued by repeated allegations of violations on both sides.

Israel has repeatedly fired on Palestinians in Gaza, saying they were violating the truce by approaching forbidden areas, killing some and wounding others, according to local health officials. The Israeli military has also said that it has struck areas from where rockets have been launched in Gaza; none of those projectiles crossed the border into Israeli territory.

And days before the release of the prisoners was delayed, Hamas’s initial failure to return the body of Shiri Bibas as promised provoked outrage in Israel. Hamas militants had handed over what it said was her body alongside her children’s remains in a televised ceremony.

Israeli forensic analysts determined that the remains did not belong to her. Hamas later acknowledged the possibility of a mistake and handed over the correct remains late on Friday night.

Ms. Bibas and her children were buried on Wednesday in Israel. Some mourners wore orange in memory of the children, who were redheads.

Fatima AbdulKarim contributed reporting from Ramallah in the West Bank.

For the first time in almost a decade, South Koreans are having more babies.

The 3.6 percent rise recorded in births last year — the first since 2015 — offered a sliver of hope to government officials who have been rolling out greater parental leave and other benefits to try to increase the world’s lowest birthrate.

The jump follows an increased number of marriages in the past few years, partly because many weddings were postponed during the Covid-19 pandemic. In South Korea, people almost always marry before having a child.

The turnaround in the birthrate indicates a “change in social value, with more positive attitudes toward marriage and having children,” Park Hyun-jung, an official from the government’s statistic agency, said in a briefing.

Some 238,300 babies were born last year, an increase of 8,300 from 2023, according to a preliminary report released on Wednesday by the agency. Whether the rise is a blip or the beginning of a trend remains to be seen.

“This is welcome news,” said Seulki Choi, a professor of demographics and sociology from the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in Sejong City. The birthrate had been slipping so drastically that “it was hard to imagine just how far it would drop.”

Reversing the country’s declining population altogether will be a far more difficult feat to achieve, population experts say, as the elderly in South Korea outnumber the youth. The number of deaths last year was 358,400, an increase of 5,800 (or 1.7 percent) compared with the previous year.

Population experts have predicted that a continued downward trajectory in births would halve the nation’s census of 51 million by the year 2100.

The nation has struggled with its aging population for the better part of a decade. The fertility rate — the average number of children born to a woman during her reproductive years — nose-dived from 1.24 in 2015 to 0.72 in 2023. Generally speaking, a total fertility rate of 2.1 is needed to ensure a broadly stable population.

Young people have been anxious about their futures, both in their careers and financially, said Professor Choi, adding that the struggle to find a stable job has made the prospect of having a child more daunting, especially in major cities. The fertility rate in the capital, Seoul, was 0.552 in 2023, according to government statistics.

The government has invested billions of dollars to implement measures to promote childbirth in attempts to counteract the aging population. In June, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared the declining population a “demographic national emergency.” His administration unveiled policies it would implement to ease the burden of child rearing, some of which have taken effect in recent months.

The new policies include allowing expectant mothers to work reduced hours and increasing child care leave for fathers. New fathers would be able to take 20 days off, an increase from the existing 10. The plan also promised new parents an increased monthly stipend of between 1.5 million won and 2.5 million won (around $1,000 and $1,700) for the first few months of parental leave.

Some previous proposals have faced criticism for being poorly thought out. In 2023, lawmakers considered exempting men from serving in the military if they had three children before the age of 30.

“This didn’t address the core issue of child rearing being way too difficult and expensive,” said Lee Yi-eun, a 31-year-old office worker in Seoul.

The nation’s fertility rate remained the world’s lowest last year at 0.75, according to the report.

While populations in many other developed countries have also begun to grow older and smaller, South Korea’s case has been particularly drastic, experts say. They cite the high costs of child bearing, unaffordable housing prices, and the competitive education system as some of the causes.

Last year, South Korea started increasing the number of foreign nannies allowed in to help working parents take care of their children. In a pilot program, 100 nannies arrived in the country from the Philippines in August.

Now it’s Keir Starmer’s turn.

After President Emmanuel Macron of France navigated his meeting with President Trump on Monday, skirting the rockiest shoals but making little headway, Mr. Starmer, the British prime minister, will meet Mr. Trump on Thursday to plead for the United States not to abandon Ukraine.

Mr. Starmer will face the same balancing act as Mr. Macron did, without the benefit of years of interactions dating to 2017, when Mr. Trump greeted the newly elected French president with a white-knuckle handshake that was the first of several memorable grip-and-grin moments.

Unlike Mr. Macron, Mr. Starmer will arrive in the Oval Office armed with a pledge to increase his country’s military spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2027, and to 3 percent within a decade. That addresses one of Mr. Trump’s core grievances: his contention that Europeans are free riders, sheltering under an American security umbrella.

To finance the rearming, Mr. Starmer will pare back Britain’s overseas development aid, a move that echoes, on a more modest scale, Mr. Trump’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development. Mr. Starmer’s motive is budgetary not ideological — he says the cuts are regrettable — but Mr. Trump might approve.

British officials said Mr. Starmer would combine his confidence-building gestures on defense with a strong show of support for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and a warning not to rush into a peace deal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that fails to establish security guarantees for Ukraine.

“The key thing is, we don’t want to repeat the previous mistakes in dealing with Putin, in going for a truce or cease-fire that doesn’t convert into a durable peace,” said Peter Mandelson, who became Britain’s ambassador to Washington three weeks ago and has helped arrange the visit.

Mr. Mandelson said Mr. Starmer had a different style from Mr. Macron, who called Mr. Trump “Dear Donald” and tapped him on the knee, even as he corrected him on his claim that Ukraine would pay back Europe’s aid. But Mr. Mandelson said his boss’s less demonstrative approach would also be effective.

“The prime minister has his own personal relationship with President Trump that’s been established over a series of phone calls and meetings,” Mr. Mandelson said in an interview. “Keir Starmer is a plainly spoken, straightforward guy who is perfectly capable of speaking truth unto power, and doing so respectfully, in a way that will enable the president to see what he and the U.S. gets out of any situation.”

Mr. Mandelson took note of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s words of praise after Mr. Starmer announced the increased military spending. Mr. Hegseth called it a “strong step from an enduring partner.”

Whether that will make Mr. Trump any more favorably disposed toward Mr. Starmer’s arguments on Ukraine and Russia is another matter, though the president will also be basking in another piece of news: that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has yielded to American pressure and agreed to a deal turning over revenue from some mineral resources.

Mr. Trump told reporters that Mr. Zelensky was pressing for his own Oval Office meeting on Friday, at which he and the president could sign the deal. If that meeting is confirmed, it would make Mr. Starmer the interlude between two high-profile encounters — with Mr. Macron and Mr. Zelensky.

But Mr. Starmer’s hastily assembled commitment on defense could give him credibility with Mr. Trump, unmatched by other European leaders, because it is a reminder that his Labour Party won a landslide majority in Parliament last July.

Analysts said it was hard to imagine France or Germany moving as quickly, given the political uncertainty in both countries. Mr. Macron’s control over France’s Parliament has eroded since elections last summer. Friedrich Merz, the chancellor-designate in Germany, is cobbling together a coalition after his victory last Sunday.

“Now the focus will rightly turn to France and Germany to see if they can also step up to the plate,” said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute, a research group in London. “Europeans are going to have to take the lead responsibility for their own defense very soon.”

Mr. Starmer has also drawn a line between himself and Mr. Merz on the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance. Speaking after his victory, Mr. Merz said the Trump administration “does not care much about the fate of Europe.” He said his priority would be to build an “independent European defense capability.”

Mr. Starmer, by contrast, reaffirmed Britain’s ties with the United States. “We must reject any false choice between our allies, between one side of the Atlantic or the other,” he said in Parliament on Tuesday, adding, “It is a special relationship. It is a strong relationship. I want it to go from strength to strength.”

British officials said the prime minister also hoped to announce cooperation on advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, with Mr. Trump. They said his focus would be on the future, not on re-litigating issues like the president’s labeling of Mr. Zelensky as a dictator or his assertion that Ukraine started the war with Russia.

“It’s not Starmer’s style to have exchanges on words or semantics,” Mr. Mandelson said. “He just wants to get stuff done — to make sure that as each other’s closest allies, we know what the other side is going to do.”

Maryna Tymchenko walked to the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday morning and held up a homemade cardboard sign over her head: “Reagan would have hated it,” the sign read, alluding to the former president who famously called the Soviet Union “an evil empire.”

She said she felt whiplash from the past two weeks as the United States, once Ukraine’s top ally, and the Republican Party, the party of Ronald Reagan, appeared to back Russia in its war against Ukraine.

But Ms. Tymchenko, who skipped lunch for the small protest, was nuanced in her views: She was angry with President Trump, who appeared to blame Ukraine’s leaders for Russia’s invasion of her country. But she was grateful for America’s past support of Ukraine’s war effort.

She was confused: Why had the United States aligned with Russia? Why had initial talks to end the war taken place between the United States and Russia while leaving out Ukraine? Why was the Trump administration pushing Ukraine to sign a deal — which appeared to be in its final stages on Wednesday — that would grant the United States at least some future profits from the mining of critical minerals in Ukraine?

“It feels like a knife in the back from your dear friend,” said Ms. Tymchenko, 27, who works for an information technology company in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. “That’s why I’m here. It’s so weird. That’s not what the U.S. is supposed to do. You’re the leader. You’re strong. Why don’t you support us?”

As anti-American protests go, this was more of a plea for help than a shout of anger. There were no chants of “Death to America,” as happens at even the most benign protests in Pakistan or Iran. The woman who organized the protest was gentle in her admonitions.

“Trump is making America very small,” the organizer, Anabella Morina, said several times, while holding a banner that said “God, save America” and depicted the Statue of Liberty, Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a strange embrace.

There were more police officers and journalists at the embassy’s front gates than the handful of protesters. The protest, announced on Facebook on Monday, was held in the middle of a workday, and most attendees were retirees or activists.

Still, the demonstration was emblematic of what could become a shift in Ukrainian opinion on America, with President Volodymyr Zelensky taking a more barbed tone toward its longtime ally in the war.

“Our people are used to criticizing their own president — that’s our prerogative,” Ms. Morina said. “Trump has no right to interfere. I apologize in advance for criticizing your president, but he is interfering in our affairs. This is my opinion, but I also know many who share my view — his current policies are aimed at Ukraine’s defeat.”

A poll by a Ukrainian company called Rating Group that was conducted after Mr. Trump called Mr. Zelensky a dictator found that Mr. Zelensky’s approval rating had gone up, to 65 percent from 57 percent in January.

“I was against Zelensky myself, I never voted for him,” said Alla Iskra, 61, a former economist and casino manager who came to the protest on Wednesday. But, she added, “When Trump went against Zelensky, we all united.”

Under President Biden, the United States was Ukraine’s biggest supporter, leading an international coalition against Russia and its invasion.

But now, Ukrainian online memes feature photos of Mr. Trump alone, juxtaposed with photos of Mr. Zelensky surrounded by Western leaders, as he was in Kyiv on Monday, the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

A frequently shared meme features a cartoon rendition of a well-known photograph from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in the early days of the invasion: a broken bicycle and a young man’s body. Only this rendition included Mr. Trump looking down at the body and saying, “You started it!”

Ukrainians typically love a good protest. In fact, past ones have led to revolutions: the Revolution on Granite in 1990, the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2013 and 2014. Throughout the war, demonstrators have gathered on a weekly basis to protest the plight of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

But protests at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv have, until now, been rare.

Several Ukrainians at Wednesday’s protest assailed Kyiv’s deal this week in which it agreed to turn over the revenue from some of its mineral resources to the United States.

Pavlo Derhachov, 35, called it “a new form of colonialism, hybrid colonialism.”

And signs at the protest proclaimed “no blackmail” and “no to looting Ukraine.”

Ms. Iskra, the former economist who was among the protesters, said she feared Mr. Trump’s insistence on gaining access to Ukraine’s critical minerals.

“When Trump started talking about mineral resources, I thought he meant something good, something about helping and protecting Ukraine,” she said. “But then I realized this is just business — he is making money off Ukraine.”

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting from Kyiv.