White House and Ukraine Close In on Deal For Mineral Rights

[Emrys]

29. A previous draft had clauses effectively giving the US control over who could make use of the resources,

basically for ever. I don't know whether that would be adjusted in a later draft, but it would make it far less than a good deal whatever the quid pro quo is. And the idea that Trump would grant "fair market value" when he thinks he holds all the cards in any deal would be a novelty. Trump still insists the US has given a lot more aid than it actually has, and claimed today that the EU's aid was in the form of loans, which is, predictably, a lie.

We don't even know the scope of the resources being haggled over, let alone any monetary value. I doubt very much that Trump knows anything about strategic minerals, other than his having been told by Lindsey Graham they could be quite lucrative.

Ukraine does have not insignificant amounts of strategic minerals under its territory, not to mention the territory Russia's tried to grab in the east, where some of the heaviest lodes are believed to be for some of the minerals. But the economic feasibility of extracting them is another matter. That could have been a lever to get Trump to make some effort to get Russia out of the east, but with his hoped-for relationship with Putin, he's probably seek to do a deal with them as well.

At the moment, I could see Zelensky weighing this all up saying "fuck it" and going for a deal, but it has to guarantee the Ukrainians something meaningful in terms of future security. What's that saying about "Fool me once ..."? One problem is, if the Trumpians win that concession, what more are they going to start asking for?

Meanwhile, it makes the Trump administration look unspeakably tawdry and moneygrubbing. Trump may not care, but it may come back and bite him and them in ass one day.