Ukraine balks at White House's call to give up its rare earth minerals [View all]

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Donald Trump apparently feels entitled to Ukrainian natural resources. Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn't quite see it the same way.

Ukraine balks at White House's call to give up its rare earth minerals www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— News Hub - A Home for Better News (@thenewshub.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T22:33:59.544Z

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/ukraine-balks-white-houses-call-give-rare-earth-minerals-rcna192497

Over the course of the last decade, Donald Trump’s line on the 2003 invasion of Iraq has evolved more than once, but there’s one claim he’s repeated ad nauseum: The United States, the Republican has long argued, should’ve kept Iraq’s oil as part of the war. After the president deployed U.S. troops to Syria, Trump insisted that his administration actually did take and keep Syrian oil......

With this in mind, it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Republican White House believes Ukraine should also turn over some of its natural resources to the United States, in exchange for the security aid we’ve provided to our ally.

At least for now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy didn't appear especially receptive to the idea. NBC News reported:

The Trump administration has suggested to Ukraine that the United States be granted 50% ownership of the country’s rare earth minerals, and signaled an openness to deploying American troops there to guard them if there’s a deal with Russia to end the war, according to four U.S. officials. Rather than pay for the minerals, the ownership agreement would be a way for Ukraine to reimburse the U.S. for the billions of dollars in weapons and support it’s provided to Kyiv since the war began in February 2022, two of the officials said.

When presented with proposed deal, Zelenskyy declined to sign it. The Ukrainian president did, however, say that he would examine the offer in more detail......

For his part, Trump said a day later that Zelenskyy “will be involved” in the negotiations — he didn’t say when, how, or to what degree — and went on to talk about how impressed he is with Russian military might.

“They have a big, powerful machine, you understand that?” the American president said, referring to Putin’s military. “And they defeated Hitler and they defeated Napoleon.”

It was the latest in a series of pro-Russia comments that Trump has made in recent days