President Volodymyr Zelensky left the White House early without signing a mineral deal with the United States following a heated exchange with President Donald Trump on Feb. 28.
Zelensky departed in his motorcade around 1:45 p.m. local time, without holding a joint news conference scheduled for later in the day, after the two leaders got into a heated argument while speaking with journalists in the Oval Office.
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CNN reported that following the exchange, Zelensky and Trump left to separate rooms, with the Ukrainian delegation wanting to continue talks with the Trump administration.
Trump later ordered his officials to tell the Ukrainian officials to leave the White House, despite protest from the Ukrainian delegation.
Ukraine’s mineral resources really aren’t even that considerable on a global scale. They’re not insignificant but their economic value at the moment, even setting aside the war, doesn’t have American companies salivating.
This minerals for protection thing apparently was floated by Ukraine first to the Biden administration and Trump campaign. The Biden administration didn’t do much with it because, among other things, the actual economic and practical value was questionable.
Trump, on the other hand, just wants to be seen making deals. Zelenskyy and Ukraine first floated the general idea because they knew Trump is highly transactional and it’d give Trump an easy “win.”
I highly doubt trillions in profits are anywhere in the mix.
And you don’t want to negotiate anything with Trump directly. If Zelenskyy did that intentionally, he dropped the ball. Trump is far too mercurial and often only grasps issues in the most basic of senses. Trying to get into a nuts and bolts negotiation with him is pointless. Hammer that out first, get something signable without too onerous of long term commitments, compliment him, sign, move on.
So there’s a huge deposit between Mariupol and Donetsk, which is in Russian controlled territory. It’s probably the easiest to mine and most economically viable… I think that was the original plan Zelensky was thinking. Get some American mining infrastructure there and then thr US has skin in the game.
Trump seems to have a survey of the entire countries rare earth resources and is just taking the entire estimated value and splitting in half. Which as you pointed out is stupid, because a lot of the deposits are smaller or would be much more expensive to mine.
I think this is why Putin also was quick to mention cooperating with the USA on minerals in Russia (which from his POV includes those regions). I’m sure Zelenskyy/Ukraine would want to try to use that as leverage but I don’t think Trump bites.
There are some substantial reserves of various minerals elsewhere but not sure how viable and valuable they really are.