President Donald Trump on Monday indicated that he wants to reach an agreement with Ukraine to gain access to the country’s rare earth elements as a condition for continuing U.S. support for its war against Russia.

Summary

Trump stated that continued U.S. support for Ukraine’s war effort would be contingent on securing access to the country’s rare earth materials.

He argued that the U.S. has contributed more aid than European allies and wants Ukraine to provide rare earth elements in return.

Trump claimed Ukraine is open to a deal, while Ukrainian President Zelenskyy stressed that negotiations about Ukraine must include its government.

Trump also said talks are ongoing to end the war, though no concrete agreements have been reached.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    85·
    19 hours ago

    Honestly this is a good opportunity for Ukraine because trump is very easy to manipulate.

    First:

    Ukraine should say “absolutely!.. but we can’t do any of that until all Russia is gone from Ukrainian soil including Crimea. We wouldn’t want your Rare Earth metals to be attacked by Russians. Also we’ll need to ship them out of our port cities many of which Russia currently occupies in the sea of Azov and Crimea. So give us everything we need to clear out the Russians and we’ll get started on shipping you ore! Also, you want to make sure Ukraine is sovereign at the end of this and that Russia has no control over us because you know Putin won’t honor our deal on Rare Earths for the USA”

    Second:

    Rare Earth minerals aren’t uncommon, they’re just very sparsely spread over large areas of dirt or water. The hard, dirty, and expensive work of producing Rare Earth metals is the refinement. I’m not seeing any requirement here the Ukraine refines it. This means that Ukraine could fulfill the commitment to trump by shipping raw ore. The only think Ukraine will have to do is shovel dirt right out of the ground and put it in ships on the way to the USA. Any level of concentration would qualify (and again, they’re not rare, just not densely concentrated).

    Third:

    Much of the military aid Ukraine has received is loans of military gear. Ukraine knows this and is planning on paying this back over many decades. If Ukraine could offer shiploads of dirt as payment, they could get out from under the war debt far earlier than they planned.

    Ukraine should absolutely take this deal. It secures their borders, kicks Russia out, keeps the country sovereign, and reduces their war debt. Oh, it will probably also piss off Putin, which is a nice side win.