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Art Of The Steal
Congratulations to Donald Trump. He successfully extorted a desperate, war-torn Ukraine for a huge s
From what I’ve seen, the rare earth deposits are very low quality. No miners would bother to mine them. And then, there’s that little detail of converting the ore into useful metals, which is commonly called refining. There is very little refining capacity outside of China. (Exhibit one is the fact that MP Materials has been sending the ores they mine in the US to China for processing.) MP and Lynas are trying to build refining capacity in pollution-friendly Texas which will erode but not come close to replacing China’s processing stranglehold.
Apparently there are some good commercially viable lithium deposits. However they are in the part of Ukraine which Russia currently occupies.
Ah, such annoying little details.
A larger question i have is which private US companies might even be interested in spending millions to start extracting those low quality ores? And what would the financial arrangement with the US government be?? Up front payments or a share of revenues?? Trump will certainly want a cut!
All that said, I’m sure that Bessent and Navarro have thought this through.
And look, leave it to Trump to steal something that isn’t there. All 3D chess narratives re: Russia strategy aside, that’s absolutely something he’d do.
I suppose it is just signaling = telling the world that we no longer hand out aid to anyone with no strings attached.
It’s not such a large step from our longstanding requirements that military aid be spent on US weaponry.
The economics definitely aren’t there. China is successfully pursuing a two-pronged strategy with rare earths (and many other strategic minerals) wherein they go out of their way to remind the world of how catastrophic it would be if they were ever to cut off the supply (several warning shots fired at the Biden administration) while maintaining output at a level which keeps prices below where it would be economically viable to build new capacity.
Your mention of Lynas was apt. They just disappointed on their most recent earnings & blamed it on low market prices for rare earths (particularly NdPr). The only way new capacity can ever be successful is with significant government subsidies, which is kind of the opposite of the Ukr scenario where a foreign government is going to take a 50% haircut off the top.
Here is the actual bilateral agreement. The devil will be in the details of the “to be drafted” Fund Agreement.
At least the opening paragraph acknowledges that Russia invaded Ukraine:
WHEREAS the United States of America has provided significant financial and material support to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022;
https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/framework-agreement-us-ukraine-developing-critical-minerals-2025-02-26/
I think even America’s pre-eminent dealmaker would admit you don’t negotiate in good faith with a con man. So why
even try? Tell Mar-A-Lardo what he wants to hear, sign whatever grammar and spelling-challenged agreement that his government-playing cronies can muster, and move on.
I mean if we’re not honoring NAFTA, NATO, the Geneva Convention or any of a host of other well-founded norms and agreements, I don’t think it’s a huge leap to make the Big Guy’s beak-wetting agreement not worth the pappello it’s written on when the time comes. And there’s always a possibility that another golden squirrel (Fort Knox literally, Greenland, Epstein files) will distract him before his wise guys can even get around to collections in Ukraine.
However if the ‘deal’ is not possible then Trump can declare Ukraine in default. Default will then allow Russia to take over Ukraine from those “lying politicians”. I can believe is it best for Ukraine to hold out for ‘a deal’ they can live with. Afterall if Trump is mainly focused on adoring headlines he needs peace agreements to stand behind. Therefore I think ‘the deal’ will continue to evolve as long as Ukraine offers a realistic hope of gaining him the prized headline.
Did I understand correctly in the reporting that this sort of deal was originally Zelensky’s idea? I’m going to be amused if Trump’s gullibility ends up being a positive for once.
Yes. From the BBC:
“The prospect of a minerals deal was first proposed by Zelensky last year as a way to offer the US a tangible reason to continue supporting Ukraine.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn527pz54neo.amp
Given that in US business law for a contract to be considered enforceable, there has to be an exchange of something, this looks to be an unenforceable contract on its face. Give us something for nothing is not going to hold up in US court if Ukraine survives, and if the US someday tries to come calling to enforce this contract. I think it goes without saying that Ukranian courts won’t come to our rescue either.
If the rare earths are not much, then VZ is not giving up much. VZ will play his cards better than Putin or Trump. His underground manufacturing of innovative drones and missiles coupled with Europe’s support and the spirit of his people may be enough to stalemate Russia. But he needs the US to continue sanctions, and he may be thinking he can get that by capitulating to Trump, who may be facing the embarrassment of surrender, betrayal of the West, being dubbed a loser and Putin’s bitch, if that’s how Americans would see it. And they might. They just might.
Why should American taxpayers continue backing a government with well-documented corruption for free in the name of “democratic ideals” when it does nothing for the average American? Critics of the latest Trump deal argue that he’s exploiting Ukraine, but at least it shifts the relationship to a transactional one—something that should have been the case from the start.
Meanwhile, Zelensky plays the perpetual extortion victim, now implying that China is responsible for prolonging the war simply because they haven’t pressured Russia to stop—when in reality, Ukraine never consulted China before embarking on a path of deepening Western ties instead of a balanced diplomatic approach. Ukraine knowingly walked into a situation that gave Russia an excuse to invade, and now they expect the international community to bail them out indefinitely? At some point, reckless gambits come with consequences.
Just following in the proud tradition of wasting our young men’s lives and major dollars supporting corrupt regimes in Vietnam and Iraq and trillions poured down the toilet supporting the Shah, Taiwan etc. It’s global plolitical chess, not a series of business deals.
Sir, I am genuinely curious if you want to withdraw the US from pointless wars and nation building as George W Bush promised during his first campaign before he was hijacked by the neo-cons. Or are you only outraged by aid to Ukraine?
What’s the deal with Elon? He’s notably a genius. He didn’t stop being one just because he switched political sides. But why support Putin?
Ostensibly he has a beef with Europe over free speech. But free speech is not something Russians have either.
Genius is a form of tunnel vision
Nothing more
Nate Silver has a substack and recently discussed different forms of intelligence and how they apply to Musk. Worth a read as he makes an important point about how intelligence in one area can blind a person to their shortcomings in other areas.
I’m interested in Nate’s take on this, but have long held the same opinion. It’s how someone who has succeeded spectacularly can also believe some of the most non-sensical things. In his case, I think he often can’t see the big picture in areas outside of his expertise. And also he doesn’t care at all about the costs people might pay if his beliefs are wrong.
Case in point: His 3-19-20 tweet that based on current trends there likely would be almost no Covid cases in the US by the end of the next month.
Currently he’s dismembering US agencies in a way that will cause millions of people immediate suffering here and abroad, and which will have a material negative effect on the US economy which will, of course, affect the world economy.
He doesn’t know anymore what he’s doing here than he did with Covid, and he will not care whatever damage is done.
Actually, I read recently that Seth Abramson, Musk’s latest biographer, says he can find no objective evidence showing that Musk has an actual IQ of only 110 = no genius. Mainly, he has difficulty expressing complex ideas. He is a certainly not a Mensa member. He was fired from PayPal which he is sometimes credited with founding. It took years to fix that one. He is also currently being sued for stealing a major idea for which he has a claimed credit. He may have influenced the world with Space X and a return to EV autos, but he did not invent any of this tech. I have never read any list of patents credited to him. It also occurs to me he has a fairly short attention span.
He also appears to self medicate with things that make him nearly unintelligible at times.
I’m going to brave tin hat catcalls by saying that in the last 10 years with American politics under Trump, I have found a lot of things are much easier to explain if you entertain Kompromat as the reason after exhausting other more traditional rationales that make as much sense. Perhaps you’ve noticed the correlation between degree of sycophancy and degree of potentially questionable personal and/or professional conduct.
H-Man, it would not surprise me that this conflict has a body count of 2 million. Russia currently at 600,000, Ukraine does not report fatalities for soldiers but assume the same as Russia or more and then we have to add up the common folk who became fodder.