The deal is mostly symbolic, but it’s a start.
U.S. and Ukraine Announce a Deal
The Washington Post reports U.S. and Ukraine Announce Signing of Contentious Minerals Deal.
The United States and Ukraine have signed a deal to establish joint investment in Ukraine’s mineral wealth, oil, gas and other natural resources, officials said Wednesday, in a move that would fulfill a key White House request and give Kyiv a degree of much-desired U.S. backing.
“As the President has said, the United States is committed to helping facilitate the end of this cruel and senseless war,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.”
The deal will establish the “United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund” which will allow the “two countries to work collaboratively and invest together to ensure that our mutual assets, talents, and capabilities can accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery,” Bessent said in a statement.
The latest version of the deal, reviewed by The Washington Post, falls short of providing any concrete security guarantees to Ukraine, but it states that Kyiv and Washington agree it affirms a “long-term strategic alignment” between the two countries and U.S. “support for Ukraine’s security, prosperity, reconstruction, and integration into global economic frameworks.”
That language alone marks a win for Kyiv, which has been seeking any show of support from the U.S. since the relationship between the two countries turned rocky under President Donald Trump. Ukraine will seek significantly more tangible security guarantees under any future peace deal.
This agreement makes no mention of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest such facility in Europe, which Russia violently seized in early 2022 and now occupies. U.S. officials have proposed taking control of the plant as part of a future deal to end the war.
The latest draft of the deal adjusts several key points that Ukraine had objected to in past versions. Kyiv had, for example, raised concerns over language in a different draft that it feared could have put it in violation of European Union laws by offering advantages to American investors.
Ukraine is urgently attempting to join the bloc of nations and must ensure that its laws conform to it. The text includes a provision that protects Ukraine from any binding agreement that may hamper its goal of E.U. accession. It also allows for the possibility of future good-faith negotiations to rewrite parts of the deal if Ukraine legally must do so.
The draft also nixes old language that would have set Ukraine up to reimburse Washington for past U.S. military aid.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Wednesday that the two sides were finalizing “technical details” regarding the deal, which he described as a “milestone” for Ukraine.
Still, the deal reflects largely hypothetical questions given the substantial uncertainty over the future of the sector in Ukraine, said Oleg Ustenko, who served as an economic adviser to Zelensky.
“Trump wants to present this as a victory for the Americans, but it’s not Trump who will invest, and it’s not the U.S. who will invest — you need the private sector,” Ustenko said. “So I think it’s more symbolic than anything else right now.”
Alex Jacquez, who served as a senior official on minerals in the Biden administration, said it’s extremely unlikely Ukraine has the ability to develop a new mining industry in lithium or rare earth metals, calling the trillions of dollars in natural resources claimed by the Trump administration to be illusory. Ukraine does have a large iron ore industry, but the draft agreement does not appear to include it.
“The bottom line is Ukraine has deposits of a variety of critical minerals being valued at essentially imaginary numbers,” Jacquez said. “There is a reason few of these mining projects are actually being developed outside of China — under current economic conditions, it makes little sense for investors.”
It’s a Start
This is good news.
It is mostly irrelevant if the mining prospects are slim. What matters is Trump thinks the minerals are there and minable.
Perhaps Trump will put a bit more pressure on Russia now that he thinks he has something to protect.
But where is Secretary of State Marco Rubio hiding? He is the one who should be involved in these discussions, not Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary.
Great example of Trump’s “thinking”.
None of it is real; the USA will never earn a single $; the minerals are not easily exploitable, which is why they remain in the ground for the most part; the agreements will not be honored by any future Ukrainian state or whatever it will be called in the future, rejected under international law as odious debts acquired under duress.
But Trump can trumpet himself on social media as getting a deal that rakes in in $; counting dollars (even if imaginary), is Trump’s only mode of “thought”.
I’m not sure that future president Rubio wants to be the face guy while trump makes a mess of things. Bessent is the front man now for the charade.
Silly to think that the minerals are actually mineable. They would have been mined a long time ago if they were viable economically.
“This is good news.
It is mostly irrelevant if the mining prospects are slim. What matters is Trump thinks the minerals are there and minable.
Perhaps Trump will put a bit more pressure on Russia now that he thinks he has something to protect.”
I thought you were for peace almost regardless of anything else.
How does that get us closer to peace..?
It does, in fact and as you correctly point out by talking about it motivating Trump to put more pressure on Russia, get us FARTHER from peace.
The whole farce about the US “mediating” a war it itself started was always absurd but Trump had his chance to walk away from that lost war (and spare the US at least a part of the humiliation) and it looks like in his effort (no doubt under huge pressure from all sides) to save whatever can be saved of the criminal and illegitimate Ukrainian government and of the miserable Ukrainian frankenstein state he blew it and he is going to own it.
China should appoint Zelensky as their US Trade negotiator.
There would be zero percent tariffs on all Chinese imports into the US, including autos.
As well, Ukraine can now theoretically take new loans on the mineral deposits for ongoing wartime needs … The Russian population can’t be ecstatic about the prospects for ongoing losses of grandsons, sons, fathers, husbands, cousins… and for what?
Well, there is that thing about exporting Natural Gas and oil to Europe and China.
More Kabuki theater. A popular (reality TV) approach now: symbolic victories abound, vaporizing under scrutiny of actual data. The usual suspect never fails to leave himself an out. He is not committed to any stable rules, or to any counter-party, except as a transitory transactional form of leverage, with the dumping always suddenly and readily possible. This provides a creaky and untrustworthy platform for the fabled private sector investment.
=Minerals Deal,
total BS!
if minerals were there Soviets would have developed deposits!! they did not!
it is not known for western mor11ons, but it is known facts for anyone who lived in USSR that Ukraine was primary hub for military industr. development in USSR,
eastern/central parts of.
reasons:
huge educated ppl , huge deposits of iron/coal (developed before 1917), close to eastern/central Europe, and ports on Black/Azov seas, and route to Mediterranean!
it is ALL BS!!!! there is none!
alx
Jobless claims up 241k vs 225k. Turdonomics™ is for reals.
meanwhile: WSJ Reveals Russia Arming Massive New Rear Reserve Forcehttps://simplicius76.substack.com/p/another-shocker-wsj-reveals-russia
=simplicius76
yeah I read him!
simplicius76 is mo1ron. and I am russian, so no bias!!!
he-she cites WSJ when it suits him-her.
but if WSJ posts info about Russian losses. he just posts it is propaganda.
alx
his-her engish is good, so i guess it is some kind of pro russian entity.
Good article.
Pressure on Russia? Good luck with that.
We are heading to Saigon 2.0 moment. Prepare your helicopters again.
China reporting Trump is crawling to Xi to beg for trade deal.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-trump-administration-quietly-reaches-out-to-beijing-to-kick-off-tariff-talks-191201623.html
Maybe a deal will finally happen.
won’t matter. next month zion don will change his mind and come up with some other nutjob idea. he’s a schizo. might as well be starring as actual insane guy, in one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
trump is actually women, who cant decide what she wants. and how to get it done.
Trump is an insane and cowardly male with a very small Johnson as reported by his favorite porn star. He is a male child not a man, at least mentally.
Lost territory
Lost minerals
No NATO membership
No EU membership
Thousands and thousands died.
Whole country destroyed.
No manufacturing base left
No youth left to rebuild the country.
No future.
No peace keeper.
Peace agreement in Russian term.
No more oil transit fees.
WTF! Stupid, idiot Ukrainian.
You are used. This is Proxy war. Ukraine is sacrificed.
Sold the whole country.
Where is AZOV Brigade?
“Where is AZOV Brigade?”
Mostly 6 feet under or with missing limbs, just like the rest of those “stupid, idiot Ukrainians” used by the West you talk about and of whom they are the biggest and foremost representatives…
Zelensky just sucker punched Trump.
Zelensky has been ‘sucker-punching’ Ukraine and its people since Feb 2022.
He should have abided by and respected the Minsk II Agreement that existed before he became President.
He should have kept his campaign promise to stay neutral and not seek NATO membership.
He should have and nearly did sign the Peace Agreement that was on the table and that both parties had agreed to in principle before the war went full-scale in February 2022.
Then, unfortunately (for Ukraine) he changed his mind and committed Ukraine to what has become a living Hell for its people.
Now, Ukraine will lose more territory and mineral wealth than she would have if that 2022 Peace Deal had been done.
And 7,000,000 people would not have fled the country.
And 3.7 million people would not have been displaced.
And hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians would not have been killed and injured.
It doesn’t matter which side you love or hate; it is reality.
This War could have been avoided.
Zelensky is a fool.
Zelensky and his cohorts are the only Ukrainians that will emerge more wealthy than when the War began.
With U.S. taxpayer $, of course.
Ukraine obviously was a divided country. perhaps some different partition should have occurred. But all that you say “should have been” would be surrender of the whole thing to Russian proxies — to Russia. What was the Crimea taking — an act of a friendly neighbor?
Pakistan – India nuke fest? Thank a Brit!
Is the devil in the details as too often is the case?
Whatever the details are, what I see here is transparently flimsy.
Per the secretary of the treasury, “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.”
Realpolitik, however, argues that Ukraine will be a vassal state and dependent on Russian hegemony for its security. Peace will be negotiated on Russian terms because they won the war. To the victor go the spoils.
Trump’s gamble of garnering rare earth minerals from Ukraine will be as successful as annexing Greenland, Panama, Venezuela and admitting Canada as the 51st state or bupkis.
He has alienated his trading partners, pushed them into the arms of his strongest economic and military competitor through poorly planned tariffs, signed unconstitutional executive orders, kidnapped residents without legal process, created wanton destruction in Yemen and facilitated a holocaust in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. These are hallmark signs of a narcissistic sociopath governing a waning empire that is overreaching its capacities and has an exaggerated sense of itself while dismantling civil rights, due process, freedom of speech, etc., at home.
Trump is a wannabe dictator and fascist without the wherewithal to manage himself much less be the Commander-In-Chief, Chief Diplomat, Chief Executive, Chief Legislator, Chief Administrator, Chief of Party, and Chief Citizen. He has failed in nearly every personal and professional endeavor. His one success that has gotten him where he is at is that he was son of Fred Trump so much like other modern day billionaires he owes his accomplishments not to his own devices and acumen but as a trust fund baby.
I’d replace Trump with Bukele, no prob.
First thing to go would be the Federal Reserve:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcb-NyPLB5Y
Maybe he can photoshop his birth certificate; it’s been done before.
Sure, hand off our world leadership and most effective currency ever, to a bunch of crypto bros from a country best known for its prison farms. What is its GDP, its leadership in anything? Except accepting proven scammable air-certificates.
Biden pushed Russia into the embrace of China.
This has been the State Department’s worst nightmare.
Since the 1950’s.
Biden reneged/seized Russian owned U.S. Treasuries.
As a result, the U.S. Treasury has gone from the most trusted asset on earth to a sketchy piece of paper.
Biden threw $300 Billion down the toilet in Ukraine.
Biden pushed Zelensky to war and kept funding the death.
I don’t like Trump but Biden is pure evil.
Biden, Biden, Biden. Russia took Crimea pre-Biden. US has been dealing uncomfortably with Russia and sanctioning it, pre-Biden. This was brewing for awhile. Russians in east Ukraine border area shot down an airliner. Russia invaded Ukraine with brutal military action, against civilians, demanding not a reasonable partition, but the whole thing. It is Putin’s paranoia. Russia should develop its country but for some reason has a far smaller economy than California. I suggest it goes to bad governance. It goes way back to Stalin starving, shooting and deporting millions of Ukrainians. People have been stomping all over Ukraine far longer than your life, or your microscopic historical memory, or at least, what you pretend to be so.
The catch? The minerals are located in Russian-held territory.
Trump already wants to increase the defense budget by $150 billion, what’s another $150 billion to retake that territory?
Buried in the news is the creation of a US backed “Ukraine Reconstruction” fund. No price tag mentioned, but there’s another $150 billion right there.
Putin can go screw himself
arm chair warrior? what eastern front are you?
or you are in moms basement?
These agreements are barely scratching the surface. America ,Germany and France
seized $300 Billion in Russian assets at the start of the war. Russia is going to drive a hard bargain unless those assets are returned.
it is just 0s and 1s in computer
for average russian will not change a thing
Russian gov got used to weak ruble 80*120 per $, so even reserves are returned ruble/$ rate will not back up much. 65*70 per $ ,. that is it .
For ruble savers, exchange-rate losses are offset by interest rates while inflation makes prices increase in dollar terms as well. Actually, 10 years after it had first dropped to 80 per dollar, ruble is now considered “excessively strong” at the current rate, with some exporters eager to see it lose 15-20% (i.e. 95-100 per dollar).
Then there should be a set-off for the losses caused by Russian incursion.
Trump has stepped back a pace from his initial negotiating position, which was admittedly harsh. But that’s “the Art of the Deal” (his 80’s book title), where you are prepared to walk away from the table if you don’t get something you really want at a reasonable price.
Trump is a New Yorker through and through. He’d bargain with a Girl Guide over her charity cookies if he could. His actions throughout his public career, including “putting economic pressure on Canada” to join the U.S. (twisting Canada’s arm) speak of a firm negotiator who is not dogmatic in his positions.
Trump contains within him the possible seeds of greatness, if he can avoid getting in legal trouble by overstepping the Constitution’s grounds. I think he knows this, which is why he probably passes his actions by his lawyers all the time. A prudent thing to do.
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You can read more of my writings by visiting: dark . sport . blog — on the net!
Or at least, that is what the constructed PR narrative, the reality TV claims, have always been. This plays well with a certain level of mass audience, for sure. But anyone with eyes open (and any business sense at all) has seen the ridiculous hash played out globally before our eyes in the fabled 100 days. That is absolutely not what made America great at any prior time. There was always more subtlety and finesse, even if hegemonic power, sometimes brutality, was being brought to bear. I am hearing laughter from many quarters.
“Putting more pressure on Russia” is the LAST thing Trump, America or the world needs. This kabuki theatre, like the UK’s “port deal”, is just silly childish games divorced from the real world. Embarrassing.
what a joke. this is just a way for Trump to let the MICC keep spending the us treasury money in ukraine. we’ll have troops there in a few years to protect assets and spend trillions for another few decades. rare earths are everywhere. it’s just processing them that is dirty and specialized. this is a joke. not to mention trump might change his mind next month or year. he’s a schizo.
magic beans
A Gold Mine Is a Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top
Trump is going to deliver Ukraine to Putin on a silver plate. What more historical analogies (talking about the Bible) do you need?
I think that you have that backwards. “Z” was about to allow Russia to bulldoze Ukraine. Trump found a way out for “Z” and smartly “Z” has now agreed. Like I said awhile back:
U.S. Gets Minerals
Russia Gets Crimea (etc.)
Ukraine Gets to keep what’s left of Ukraine
If thats Trump delivering Ukraine to Putin on a silver plate, then Deliver It Up!!!
The US purposely ginned up this war. To now demand Ukraine’s resources is a filthy rotten thing to do – even though Ukraine shot itself in the head by letting themselves be convinced that they could beat Russia. Besides, where are these supposed minerals? Because if any of them are in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye or Kherson, they’re no longer Ukraine’s to sell.
Britain signed a deal for 100 years’ control of Ukraine ports. That’s a pretty strong incentive for Russia to make sure Ukraine doesn’t have any ports.
Agreed.
” … Ukraine shot itself in the head by letting themselves be convinced that they could beat Russia.” Um, they were militarily invaded. They defended themselves. Is plain truth that impossible for you?
Smoke and Mirrors …..
Trump and Zelensky signed a deal….
That reminds me of story that starts out “Two of the most corrupt individuals in the world are fighting over minerals that don’t exist.”
It makes sense that we would tie up any potential minerals for our use as well, after what just transpired. If we didn’t, then Russia would take them, as Ukraine couldn’t stop them.
We are working very closely with Greenland right now, and that looks equally promising. We could gain more minerals from them too. They seem eager to discuss things, but nothing concrete just yet. My guess, is that will take place by year end at the latest. Greenland needs cover, for what’s going on right now, and we provide that, and allow peace to be maintained and their sovereignty stays intact.
Lots going on, and I discount nothing at the moment, as the World is in flux, and strange things can occur when that’s the case…
The minerals and metals are mostly in the eastern fringe of Ukraine, as has been known since the early 1900’s. That’s why factories were there, and Hitler tried so hard to hold onto that. I don’t see Russia letting that go.
And why can’t Greenland look to the EU? Why is that not a choice, per Trump’s offered menu? I’m getting 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop vibes, except this time Trump is trying to be the Ribbentrop character. Seems like he is cool with brushing aside the views of large populations of humans.
Many of the minerals have never been totally mined. Ukraine has an array of minerals, as they are not all in Russia, and this has been discussed already with Russia. Ukraine has graphite, titanium, lithium, beryllium, and uranium, Also Deposits of copper, lead, zinc, silver, nickel, cobalt and manganese. Further, Ukraine has significant deposits of rare earth metals as well.
A plethora of items we could use, want, and need. We do not know how much specifically of course, because it hasn’t yet been mined, but we know a lot by instruments available that do that digging, so to speak, for us…
I just stopped laughing at the comment: “ why can’t Greenland look to the EU”?
For what exactly? Um Security/Safety, from the EU, and with what Armed Services Group? With what for Munitions? The EU can’t help themselves with Energy needs and Investments. What does the EU offer again, that’s helpful to anyone, but the EU? They need much more of what they don’t have, before they can help themselves out, so how do they help Ukraine again?
Compared to Biden, Trump is Issac and King Solomon, but with 18,000 sanctions on Russia and the Red Army ironing out the Ukies on a daily basis (according to Dan Davis, Col Macgregor, and Prof Mearsheimer) what leverage can the US have? Best to walk away when Biden’s last aid package runs out and blame Congress for not authorizing another $350B into the black hole of Kiev.Let the stupid Euros buy American weapons if they want. Gold only, Ursula, no checks!
Put pressure on Russia? Russia has already won the war in Ukraine, and putting myself in their shoes, I would be absolutely livid about this pig in a poke. I don’t know Ukraine or Russia, but I know human psychology, and this will not end well. What will happen the first time Americans are murdered there and it is blamed on the Russians? What will happen when the US is a fully integrated source of intelligence for Ukraine? I see this prolonging the war and costing more lives on both sides, with the added “bonus” of direct confrontation between the US and Russia, not the start of some kind of détente amongst these 3 countries.
So a sovereign Ukraine doesn’t matter to you? That seems to be at least the point here. Should we just cower and let Putin seize everything? What does that do after Afghanistan and Vietnam?
I am a mining engineer.
Ukraine stratigec minerals deposits must be considered “geofantsies” unless there is an existing detailed documentation of the mineable recoverable RESERVE!!!
It is weird. 4 years of Biden and no info about strategic minerals. Then Trump gets elected and it becomes a ‘thing’….
Maybe the answer is “Schrodinger Trump”. He can now say we access to rare earths. So, we will have access and not have access at the same time – lol.
It’s a shambolic victory…
effectively promoted as a win…
when facts simply don’t matter.
Some of the Bushies had a thing about supposed Afghan minerals too. That went up in a puff of smoke.
Oh but there IS “existing detailed documentation of the mineable recoverable RESERVE”.
It is from Soviet times and while Rare Earths were plentiful their extraction was not profitable at the time. As for the rest, they are plentiful as well, from coal to lithium to iron ore to salt and much more, and they are already being profitably extracted.
The only small problem for the Western pirates (of whom Trump is just the latest and by far not the biggest nor the smartest) is that most of it is on returned and soon to be returned Russian land and it is going to profit the Russian people, not the Western oligarchs and banksters…
exactly
====
if minerals were there Soviets would have developed deposits!! they did not!
it is not known for western mor11ons, but it is known facts for anyone who lived in USSR that Ukraine was primary hub for military industr. development in USSR,
eastern/central parts of.
reasons:
huge educated ppl , huge deposits of iron/coal (developed before 1917), close to eastern/central Europe, and ports on Black/Azov seas, and route to Mediterranean!
it is ALL BS!!!! there is none!