Capital Economy, Business and Finance
Whisper it, but the superior dealmaker in the matter of Zelensky, Trump and Ukraine’s minerals may be Zelensky.
The deal that was off when Trump demanded $500 billion of mineral wealth as payment-in-arrears for US military aid is on again. Both sides will pay into a reconstruction fund, per the FT.
Three other points seem worth noting. First, the headline sum for the US won't be as much as $500 billion (which is nearly five times the dollar value of US aid to Ukraine since 2022), but even that is only a twentieth of the total estimated value of Ukraine’s reserves of critical minerals.
Second, almost none of these reserves are currently being exploited, so any revenues accruing to Kyiv are in a sense gravy.
And third, Trump appears to think the US will be getting an alternative supply of the rare earths whose production is currently dominated by China.
But it won’t. Ukraine has a lot of lithium, titanium and cobalt but not much in the way of rare earths.
