UKRAINE has agreed the terms of a major minerals deal with the US, a senior official in Kiev has told the BBC. US President Donald Trump said he is expecting his Ukrainian ‘partner’ Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington to sign the deal this week.
Trump said on Tuesday that in return for the deal Ukraine would get ‘the right to fight on’.
‘They’re very brave,’ he told reporters, but ‘without the United States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time.’
Asked whether supplies of US equipment and ammunition to Ukraine would continue, he said: ‘Maybe, until we have a deal with Russia… We need to have a deal, otherwise it’s going to continue.’
There would be a need for ‘some form of peacekeeping’ in Ukraine following any peace deal, Trump added, but that would need to be ‘acceptable to everyone’.
Ukraine holds deposits of critical elements and minerals, including lithium and titanium, as well as sizeable coal, gas, oil and uranium deposits – supplies worth billions of dollars.
According to a Ukrainian government source, what has been agreed at this stage are the initial terms of an agreement that includes the country’s critical minerals and other resources.
Reports suggest it would see the creation of a jointly-owned fund, which would be used to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure and economy. Ukraine would contribute 50% of future proceeds from state-owned mineral resources, oil and gas to the fund – and the fund would then invest in projects in Ukraine itself. It is Capitalism in instalments.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna, who has been leading negotiations, told the Financial Times that the deal was ‘part of a bigger picture’.
Against a hostile backdrop, where Washington has been seen by allies as aligning with Moscow, it is hoped this agreement will pave the way for more co-operation between Kiev and its once biggest ally.
Just last week, Trump described Zelensky as a ‘dictator’, and blamed Ukraine – not Russia – for starting the war, after the Ukrainian leader rejected US demands for $500bn in mineral wealth and suggested that the American president was living in a ‘disinformation space’ created by Russia.
On Tuesday, Trump said the US had given Ukraine between $300bn and $350bn.
‘We want to get that money back,’ he said. ‘We’re helping the country through a very very big problem… but the American taxpayer now is going to get their money back plus.’
Trump said he had heard that Zelensky would come to Washington DC tomorrow to sign a deal.
Kiev hopes that a financial stake might give the White House a reason to protect Ukraine if a war was to reignite after a ceasefire was signed.
However, Ukraine is just the start. Expect Trump and his foreign policy team to apply their ‘America First’ principles around the world over the course of the next four years.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was open to offering the US access to rare minerals, including from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, and asserted that his country had ‘significantly more resources of this kind than Ukraine’.
Ukraine and its European allies have become increasingly alarmed over a recent thaw in US-Russian ties, including their bilateral talks in Saudi Arabia last week.
There is growing concern in Kiev and across Europe that they might be excluded from any negotiations aimed at ending the war, and that the continent’s future security as a whole could be decided behind their backs.
The issue is that the Stalinist bureaucracy cannot resolve the crisis of the capitalist system, but it can sell off the gains of the October revolution!
This world crisis can only be resolved by the working class of the world building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to organise the victory of the world socialist revolution, and replacing bankrupt capitalism with a worldwide socialist planned economy whose motto will be: from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. Forward to the victory of the world socialist revolution!
