| The minerals deal ain't what it seems 07:59 - May 1 with 1495 views | DJR |
I was alerted to this by a Democratic senator on the World Service saying there was very little economic benefit to the US in the agreement because the minerals would have been exploited before now if that were the case.
Of course, Trump will sell it as a triumph, and the good thing is that it may make him more sympathetic to Ukraine. But maybe Ukraine has pulled the wool over Trump's eyes because it was them that originally suggested such a deal.
Digging a a bit further I came across the following.
https://carnegieendowment.org/europe/strategic-europe/2025/04/ukraines-not-so-cr
"A narrative has emerged that Ukraine’s mineral wealth is a prize that can drastically change the energy security and global power balance for whichever great power possess it. This is mostly fantasy and, for any power other than Europe, Ukraine’s mineral wealth is pretty much insignificant.
There is nothing that Ukraine has, that can’t be obtained in greater quantities and quality elsewhere on Earth.
Before delving into what Ukraine does and doesn’t have, it is important to distinguish between resources and reserves. Resources are what is present in the ground, while reserves are deposits for which there is confidence that commercially viable quantities of a mineral can be extracted. Given that on average it takes sixteen years for a deposit to go from exploration to extraction, twelve of which are devoted to determining deposit viability, the difference between resources and reserves is critical. Taken together, in the short to mid-term of five to fifteen years, Ukraine’s minerals will not fundamentally alter the global critical minerals landscape."
https://spectrum.ieee.org/ukraine-rare-earth-minerals
"Ukraine Doesn’t Actually Have Minable Rare Earths
To begin with, the contentious 28 February Oval Office meeting can’t be understood without a crucial piece of context: there are no deposits of rare-earth ore in Ukraine known to be minable in an economically viable way. And that would be true even if full-scale warfare were not raging in the country’s east, where a great deal of its mineral resources are concentrated.
Ukraine is believed to have four areas with substantial deposits of rare earth ores, according to Erik Jonsson, senior geologist with the Geological Survey of Sweden. “There are four slightly bigger deposits: Yastrubetske, Novopoltavske, Azovske, and Mazurivske. All but one of them seem to be now within or near the zone that the Russians control, as far as I can tell,” says Jonsson. “And when it comes to resources in those deposits, I mean, we have numbers; yes, that’s nice. But we have no real, detailed, outline of how those numbers were arrived at.” The numbers are believed to come from Soviet surveys dating as far back as the 1960s.
“The rare-earth deposits don’t look that relevant,” Jonsson concludes. “I mean, I wouldn’t go for them.” Two of the deposits are dominated by a mineral called britholite, he notes, which is not desirable because it has not been processed for rare earths, which means that almost nothing exists in the way of process chemistry and equipment.
“If you want critical minerals, Ukraine ain’t the place to look for them,” declares Jack Lifton, executive chairman of the Critical Minerals Institute. “It’s a fantasy. There’s no point to any of this. There’s some other agenda going on here. I can’t believe that anybody in Washington actually believes that it makes sense to get rare earths in Ukraine.”
Even without a war to contend with, it would take at least 15 years to build a mine to begin extracting rare-earth ore on a large scale, Lifton notes. And according to the terms of the draft critical materials deal, private companies would have to invest huge sums, likely a billion dollars or more, to develop rare-earths mines in Ukraine. It’s a possibility that Lifton, an IEEE member and former metals trader, dismisses as absurd. He notes that a multinational mining company, Rio Tinto Group, has spent close to US $3 billion on potential mine sites in Arizona and Alaska and still does not have the necessary licenses and permits from the U.S. Government to begin building a mine in either place.
EDIT: given the previous article, this from the BBC website could be said to be rather misleading.
"The US has announced an economic partnership with Ukraine following negotiations over a deal that would give Washington access to Kyiv's rare earth minerals." [Post edited 1 May 8:21]
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:02 - May 1 with 1443 views | NthQldITFC |
"Who will con the conman?", said nobody, once. |  |
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:21 - May 1 with 1335 views | Guthrum |
The other aspect, which I was reading about yesterday, is the processing of mined ore. The only place which currently has facilities for this on a large scale is ... China. So the ore would need to be sent there anyway.
But, as usual with Trump, this is more about optics than practical results. |  |
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:29 - May 1 with 1284 views | Bent_double |
So, what you're saying is, Zelenskyy hasn't got the minerals, Trumpy? |  |
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:29 - May 1 with 1286 views | Swansea_Blue |
That’s interesting, thanks. In this day of 24/7 clickbait headlines and amplified clickbaity ‘not much longer than headlines’ social media posts, an idea can get half way around the world before the detail has got its pants on (to butcher a phrase).
Ukraine seem willing to take a public bashing in order to secure this deal, so the suggestions in that article make more sense than them giving away their country’s future prosperity. |  |
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:38 - May 1 with 1257 views | Guthrum |
| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:29 - May 1 by Swansea_Blue |
That’s interesting, thanks. In this day of 24/7 clickbait headlines and amplified clickbaity ‘not much longer than headlines’ social media posts, an idea can get half way around the world before the detail has got its pants on (to butcher a phrase).
Ukraine seem willing to take a public bashing in order to secure this deal, so the suggestions in that article make more sense than them giving away their country’s future prosperity. |
Ukraine may do quite well out of this, in that the USA will pay to prospect and extract resources which aren't currently being. Money is likely to be flowing into the country as much as out of it. | |
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:48 - May 1 with 1206 views | Zx1988 |
| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:02 - May 1 by NthQldITFC |
"Who will con the conman?", said nobody, once. |
Coastguard? |  |
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:51 - May 1 with 1194 views | Guthrum |
Also, I don't think the wool has been pulled over Trump's eyes. Much like the tariff campaign, he doesn't care if this is actually lucrative for the USA, but whether it can be presented as such to his fanbase.
Ukraine has handed Trump a Big Win. Doubly so as most media are not looking at the aspects in your OP, but making it sound very one-sided in the Americans' favour. He gets to bask in maximum credit for "pulling this deal off" (again boosted by the images of the two presidents talking one-on-one before the Pope's funeral).
Trump has got exactly what he (personally) wanted out of this. | |
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 09:16 - May 1 with 1059 views | NthQldITFC |
| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:48 - May 1 by Zx1988 |
Coastguard? |
Pilot? | |
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 09:54 - May 1 with 888 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:51 - May 1 by Guthrum |
Also, I don't think the wool has been pulled over Trump's eyes. Much like the tariff campaign, he doesn't care if this is actually lucrative for the USA, but whether it can be presented as such to his fanbase.
Ukraine has handed Trump a Big Win. Doubly so as most media are not looking at the aspects in your OP, but making it sound very one-sided in the Americans' favour. He gets to bask in maximum credit for "pulling this deal off" (again boosted by the images of the two presidents talking one-on-one before the Pope's funeral).
Trump has got exactly what he (personally) wanted out of this. |
Optics indeed, it’s a very dubious claim that this deal will cover the $180bn in financial and military aid the US has provided to Ukraine (not so much dubious as laughable given that’s pretty much Ukraine’s entire GDP).
Smoke and mirrors as ever. | | | |
| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 15:06 - May 1 with 607 views | USA |
It does include gold and gas though. Not just minerals | | | |
| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 20:21 - May 1 with 365 views | DJR |
| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 09:54 - May 1 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
Optics indeed, it’s a very dubious claim that this deal will cover the $180bn in financial and military aid the US has provided to Ukraine (not so much dubious as laughable given that’s pretty much Ukraine’s entire GDP).
Smoke and mirrors as ever. |
Trump inflated it to $350bn, as well as inflating the benefit of the deal to more than that.
“We are in for $350 billion, or close to it… Biden handed them $350 billion between cash and military equipment. We got nothing,” Trump told NewsNation.
"So I said, look, they have great rare earth… minerals, materials — things a lot of places do not have… We made a deal today — we get much more, in theory, than the $350 billion. I did not want to… look foolish." [Post edited 1 May 20:24]
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| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 08:21 - May 2 with 147 views | TractorWood |
| The minerals deal ain't what it seems on 20:21 - May 1 by DJR |
Trump inflated it to $350bn, as well as inflating the benefit of the deal to more than that.
“We are in for $350 billion, or close to it… Biden handed them $350 billion between cash and military equipment. We got nothing,” Trump told NewsNation.
"So I said, look, they have great rare earth… minerals, materials — things a lot of places do not have… We made a deal today — we get much more, in theory, than the $350 billion. I did not want to… look foolish." [Post edited 1 May 20:24]
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I heard on the radio yesterday that a reasonable value for Ukraine's likely mining output is £1billion. This is absolutely nothing.
I too struggle to understand what this deal actually represents other than Trump political ammunition. |  |
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