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Trump Accuses Zelensky Of Disrupting Mining Deal

  • 20.02.2025, 9:17

He threatened with "unpleasant" consequences.

Ukrainian authorities have thwarted a mining deal with Washington in exchange for continued military aid, U.S. President Donald Trump said.

“We had a deal on rare earths and stuff, but they broke that deal two days ago,” Trump said at an investment forum in Miami.

According to him, the agreement was necessary so that the United States could return the money spent on supporting Ukraine.

He called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “not very successful humorist” to whom the United States gave “$350 billion for the war,” but this war “could not be won.” Trump noted that Europe gives Ukraine funds "under guarantees" and receives them back, while the United States "simply gives the money."

After that, during a conversation with journalists, Trump said that he intends to "resurrect" the deal on mining with Ukraine.

Let’s just see what happens. But I will resurrect it or it will not be too much fun, ”the American president warned.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the Trump administration is going to conclude a simplified agreement with Kiev, and then discuss detailed conditions, including how much of Ukraine's resources will be owned by the United States.

The idea of joint development of resources was first put forward by Zelensky. The proposal was part of a “victory plan” he presented to Trump in the fall. Later, the US president estimated the volume of the deal at $500 billion, stressing that Washington's access to Ukrainian resources would be a guarantee of security in any potential peaceful settlement.

On February 14, at the Munich Security Conference, representatives of the Trump administration proposed that Zelensky sign an agreement according to which the United States will receive 50% of revenues from the extraction of all minerals in Ukraine and 50% of the cost of "all new licenses issued to third parties" for their development. Zelensky refused to sign the agreement with such conditions, citing the fact that it did not say anything about security guarantees for Kiev.

At the same time, as Bloomberg commodity markets columnist Javier Blas noted, data from the US Geological Survey do not confirm the presence of large reserves of rare earth metals in Ukraine. At the same time, the production of such minerals in the world is estimated at $15 billion per year. Thus, even if Ukraine somehow begins to produce 20% of the world's rare earth metals, its income from this will amount to $3 billion a year. “To reach the $500 billion that Trump talked about, the United States will need to provide more than 150 years of production in Ukraine,” Blas said.

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