Ukraine

https://eadaily.com/en/news/2024/08/13/zelensky-is-ready-to-give-the-usa-rare-earth-metals-of-ukraine-senators-asked

This was a deal originally proposed by Zelensky to Biden administration. The deal was put on hold when Trump was elected so Ukraine could negotiate with the Trump administration before agreeing to the deal.

Then Trump came in, asked for too much, tried to bully Zelensky, and the deal fell through.

Honestly Ukraine and Zelenskyy are the only ones that get a pass for kissing Trump's ass or doing whatever they have to do to survive. The rest of the world should make it as hard as they can for Trump/Putin. I'm saying this as an American. Make it hurt maybe then the dipshits that didn't vote will do something to undo it if it's not already to late.

Trump thinks he's some kind of super deal maker, and wants to show his idiotic Republican base that the USA is getting something from Ukraine for all the billions of surplus US equipment and supplies that was going to be retired, and they are donating instead.

Instead of oh say keeping Europe and Western civilization safe by draining Russia's war machine at the cost of Ukrainian lives.

This is because the Republicans have been telling their base that Ukraine is corrupt (see Hunter Biden), and not worth saving, while saying that Russia is a white Christian 2nd Amendment loving land of the free, in that self projecting way. Basically anything the KGB pumps into social media.

We can go into how the Republicans got so far away from reality another time.

Why would Zelenskyy even contemplate a deal with the US with the current fascist administration?

• Zelenskyy has no reason to care about domestic politics in the US. It's not his job to produce domestic change in the US.

• Any kind of arrangement that the US makes with Ukraine that aligns future US interests with Ukraine's future is probably a good move from Ukraine's standpoint, at least in the short term, for Ukraine. If there's no Ukraine down the line, then there's nothing the US gets. If you're in the middle of an existential war, it is a good move to borrow money from other countries, since now they have a considerable interest in your future well-being.

• A lot of what Trump does is actually political theater for his domestic political base, with a lot of rather misleading bark and little bite. I find it very distasteful, but often what he's doing is to take an action that sounds very substantial, and then amounts to rather little, like his claims during Term 1 that he would "tear up" NAFTA that mostly came down to renaming it and some small tweaks, or Term 2 having his (highly objectionable, threatened) global tariffs increasingly look like they're turning into negotiating trade agreements. Trump has thrown around enormous dollar values that have little to do with the value of any kind of proven mineral reserves in Ukraine, and I've read a bit of expert commentary pointing out that it's absolutely unclear where he's gotten any kind of valuation that looks anything like the large numbers he's mentioned. However, it's a pretty good bet that his base has no idea what the value of anything in Ukraine is, so he can go back to them and say that he's just made a huge financial gain for the US in Ukraine. If you've paid much attention to how he runs domestic politics, a lot of what he does involves making highly-misleading statements to people in the US who are not terribly-well-educated to gain their support for policies that often don't wind up looking a whole lot like the impression that he's giving them. I'm not going to excuse that. I find it abhorrently dishonest, personally. But it does rather suggest taking a rather large grain of salt on a lot of statements that Trump makes.

• Assuming that any such deal actually happens, and depending upon how this is structured, future administrations that are not Trump may have the option to just terminate any agreement and obligations. I'm very dubious that even the majority of the Republican Party is concerned about this, much less the Democrats.

• Ukraine could probably find various ways to terminate it as well, de jure or de facto

they're a sovereign state, which creates a lot of room for pulling levers. For example, maybe they impose a tax on the mineral extraction industry that just happens to eat up all the profit it makes or something like that. What really matters, I think, is what expectations would be down the line

does the US actually expect some kind of payment? It's not something that would come up for some time, not until after the war.

• From what limited attention I've been paying, I believe that part of the proposed arrangement involved the US committing capital. Depending upon the terms of that and any extraction, it could potentially amount to effectively transferring wealth from the US to Ukraine.

• What Trump was grousing about

and I have no idea if that's his real concern or not

is that past US aid was in the form of a grant, whereas a large portion of the EU aid to Ukraine was a loan, where Ukraine needs to pay it back, and that it's a poor arrangement for the US to be gifting and the EU just lending. Now, Trump's also glossing over the fact that the EU loans are on reasonably-favorable terms. He's not mentioning that last I checked, the EU was ahead in total aid. And he's not mentioning that you could probably challenge the dollar value of some of the US (well, and EU) aid in military form, since some of the military hardware was designed to fight Soviet hardware and would probably have limited use elsewhere. But he does have a point. I wasn't very enthusiastic about the EU offering loans rather than grants when that went through

I mean, Ukraine's in a pretty tight place

but I wasn't out calling the EU extortionate either.

Not to mention, I'd add, that Ukraine isn't planning on joining the US in any sense other than maybe the limited benefits of being in NATO; Ukraine would join the EU, not the US, so there's a considerably more-limited US economic return.  Ukraine would like to join the EU and the European Single Market, giving the European Single Market benefits in terms of scale and resource access, whereas the US wouldn't see any sort of direct economic benefits from that, as there's no US-EU free trade agreement.

Now, I should make the very significant point that in World War II, US Lend-Lease aid was initially presented as being a loan to help assuage US voters upset about all this stuff being given away, then later essentially forgiven.  The same happened with the Marshall Plan.  I have wondered whether it's possible that the EU intends basically a repeat of this political strategy, or at least to do no more than to use the loan as political leverage WRT the Ukrainian government down the line during EU accession or something like that.   But Trump's got a very real point, that the form of US and EU aid has not taken the same form.  If you're angry at Trump for asking for some level of repayment of that grant in some form, you should probably also maybe ask whether the EU should consider converting its aid to the form of a grant.

Now, I personally don't think that Trump's ask is justified, especially after the fact. I've got no interest in having us ask for some sort of mineral rights in Ukraine. But I think that there's a fair bit of context to take into account.

If an agreement is signed and made public, then I'm sure that there will be legal and economic analysis and we can see what it actually amounts to. My own take is that I'd rather not have the US involved in it in the first place. But I think I'd see what's actually in it before I got too upset.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly said that Ukraine could survive without the US support but that it would be hard. There's a reason he was among the first to congratulate Trump on his victory in the election even before the votes were fully counted.

Why would Zelenskyy even contemplate a deal with the US with the current fascist administration?

Because the only way to hold a capitalists attention is with money.

obviously he knows they are liars and cheats and won't uphold any part of the agreement they don't want to.

Minerals take time to dig up, during those decades attacks on Ukraine would cut into the profits of American oligarchs.

surely he wouldn't tie up his national minerals for generations so they can get the old US stockpiles of weapons?

Considering the GOPs ties to Russia, there is some fear that the USA could switch sides entirely and help Russia.

[...]

I understand the issue of shutting down starlink would currently severely impact Ukraine, but I can also see how starlink won't be necessary in the near future as drones switch to AI and fibre, and a bunch of tech we don't know about yet.

It's only used in some large (manly naval) drones, as it is big and heavy. I think starlink is more important for communication between units and command.

so what's the deal with the 'deal'? surely it's not being entertained seriously?

It's trying to buy peace and sovereignty in a world the America only values money.

or is it all bluster for Trump to feel he's achieving something whilst the real power brokers get EU assistance?

While the new german government might be more likely to send missiles, I don't see any large changes in the near future. Unless countries can be convinced to give Ukraine unlimited acces to their own military's modern equipment or commit their own soldiers.

I'm pretty sure that Zelenskyi or Ukrainians in general are not stupid. But they're in the hard place right now and as USA support is still pretty big deal for them it's necessary to keep the negotiations going. And also they most likely need and want outside capital on rebuilding, where mineral deal (or any other deal on resources) made with both parties interest in mind might make sense.

So, my best quess is that they're actually looking for a deal which benefits both countiries equally, but they won't sign off their wealth just for a vague promise. Also keeping the negotiations going, pampering Trump every now and then and in general showing of a good faith is all beneficial for them right now. They can agree on peace fire, they can agree on joint negotiations with anyone and then either declare that there's "minor details" to iron out or (more commonly) show off to the world that they're willing to find a solution while Russia just denies every proposal.

So, their current strategy might benefit Ukraine in the long run and even if it didn't it still makes Russia look bad in comparison as they won't never be as willing for actual negotiations. In my opinion that's well spent time for few ambassadors right now.

The people doing this are diplomats. They avoid burning bridges. It's their job to keep trying to get the best solution for their country, even if it seems totally screwed. They'll try to fix it as good as possible. Sometimes they can still find good compromises. If not, at least they tried instead of giving up right away.

Trump already blinked on china tariffs. he sucks at deal making.

hey thanks everyone for your points of view. really appreciate your time to comment. my take home is that Ukraine does knows what it's doing with Trump and I'm no longer worried a bad deal will be made. ideally no deal with the US will be made, that's my preference. anyway.. the gods willing Ukraine will continue smashing the Russians cheers all