Summary
Donald Trump stated that U.S. aid to Ukraine should be compensated with $500 billion worth of its mineral resources, including rare earth elements.
He claimed Ukraine had “essentially agreed” to this arrangement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hinted at allowing U.S. access to these resources to maintain support.
The idea aligns with Ukraine’s “victory plan” for post-war recovery.
Trump’s comments drew criticism, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemning his approach as “very egotistic, very self-centered.”
Zelensky should agree: he can always renege after the war, claiming he did what he had to do to stay independent like the Finns did after WW2 to justify inviting the Nazis in, and pointing to Trump himself as the quintessential untrustworthy ruler who readily goes back on his word.
Also what Russia did to Ukraine after Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for a pledge to never invade.
Zelensky should. Trump makes trade deals and then renege’s on them all the time.
renege’s
The art of the deal
Can you elaborate on what the Finns did exactly? Or point me in the right direction. I just want to understand the parallel.
Basically Finland asked for military assistance from Nazi Germany to keep the Soviet Union at bay. German troops fought the Soviets on Finnish soil. And then when the war turned sour for Germany, Finland turned against Germany and kicked them out - more or less at the behest of the United States.
Finland’s problem has always been its gigantic aggressive neighbor to the east - and it still has that problem today. It explained its cozy relationship with Nazi Germany by the need to keep a bigger problem at bay. And it was completely true and completely rational.
But what was also true - and I know it for a fact because I talked to Finns who lived through the war and housed Germans - is that the German troops behaved impeccably in Finland and left a very good impression, even today. The Finns aren’t too proud of that but it’s a fact, and it’s even understandable from the point of view of individual Finns of the time.
After the war, not wanting to lose a potential ally in the newly-established Cold War, the US sort of accepted Finland’s rationale and let it slide. Kind of like they did with France too, which equally deserved a lot more flak than they got.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” and all that, and we didn’t exactly have many friends to choose from.
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Fins didn’t invite Nazis. Route to Norway through Finnish territory was prerequisite for much needed military supplies and weapons. After the germans were here they pretty much went where they pleased. No official military alliance was signed.
He never intended to support Ukraine. Never. This is just some bullshit to act like he’s “Justified” in cutting support. Just wait until he finds an excuse to give it to Russia instead.
Meh, the talks started with Z before elections took place and there were negotiations started August 12th-ish. I think this was Trump just trying to say some absurd number thinking that it would get Ukraine to say that’s more than they wanted to give so he could act like he offered to help before giving Russia everything they ask for anytime they ask for anything.
This is, for a sense of scale, more than five times the total value of everything the US has sent to Ukraine since February 2022
The entire gdp of the country is under $200B. Lol he’s asking for resources worth over 2.5X the value of the entire country 🤡
They have like 25 Trillion of estimated rare earth minerals under their feet and most of it is on the border of Russian controlled territory.
If they make a deal to allow US companies to extract it and get security guarantees for a decade or so from the US, it might actually be a decent deal. (Assuming that the US won’t randomly turn on you because they are batshit crazy)
Yeah I get that but it just sounds absurd and douchey when you think about it. The equivalent would sorta be if someone agreed to help us if we gave them $67 Trillion worth of oil gas and wood in return.
And just from a morality/ethical standpoint it’s goofy. Only help someone if they let you bend them over and rob them blind (I get it’s a more nuanced than that but still, it just feels slimy)
Well, there also is a big amount of rebuilding to be done and no matter who would be in the US government, there would be a strong push for the rebuilding to end in factories, apartments and farms to be owned by US investors. Also the US has a history of combining “security” with resource access.
In this regards Ukraine is getting fucked by receiving less aid than is needed to push back, but just enough to cause maximal attrition to Russia. And using the vast destruction caused by a prolonged war, was likely part of the strategy to profit off this war, both for Russia expecting victory and the US/Western Allies expecting Russia to eventually succumb to the attrition.
Now problem is that Russia kept escalating, instead of limiting their losses.
This is what the mafia does. Racketeering in exchange for protection… from itself (=in this case, Russia)
Trump has larped as a mobster for most of his life.
extortion is called “demands” if you are powerful enough
America shows its colours.
It was never freedom, it was money and power all along.
Always has been. Most of the shit they got up to after WW2 violated the human rights of half the planet, was anti-democratic, and imperialistic.
American imperialism mostly halted under Clinton and Obama. The cold war was over and they weren’t jingoistic like Bush or Trump.
Even Bush jr wasn’t as much imperial as he was militaristic. Iraq and Afghanistan would both have arguably benefited from a time as an American protectorate like Germany or Japan, but W handed over “sovereignty” while the wars were still ongoing.
Trump isn’t coherent enough to have an understandable philosophy
Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing like Germany or Japan and if you cannot create a stable government after 20 years of occupation, then there is no indication that more occupation would have done any better.
Frankly the notion that countries being invaded and have masses of their population slaughtered is “for their own benefit” is fascist talk.
You’re right, the behavior of how Iraq and Afghanistan were handled was entirely different from either Germany or Japan after WW2.
My assertion is that the USA did too much “occupation” and not enough “governance”. Both Iraq and Afghanistan essentially had anti-government resistance movements forced into pseudo-national rule without any time to develop local governance.
Once the states were broken W wanted to get out, essentially since he feared accusations of imperialism. Which kept a good twenty year plan from being implemented, and instead led to a twenty year quagmire with one of the two essentially being a failed state.
(Man, that’s a lot of essentially’s)
I don’t mean to defend either invasion as either good for the people or necessarily for American security. I just want to point out that W’s position was “go and break things then go home” which is about as imperial as a viking raid.
Yes but it could be argued that that militarism is a form of imperialism.
Not sure if a puppet is meaningfully less imperialist than a protectorate.
Trump isn’t coherent enough to have an understandable philosophy
Are you kidding? Trump is incredibly consistent: he simply does exactly what he thinks would most benefit him, personally, and fuck everybody else. No more, no less.
It’s only not an “understandable philosophy” in the sense that it’s so vile and shamelessly greedy that philosophers are too embarrassed to formalize it (and Ayn Rand doesn’t count).
“I just do what I want” isn’t a philosophy, because it doesn’t give guidance as to what someone else should do . It’s just childishness.
Even Randism / Objectivism stretches selfishness into “rich people should do what they want”. Trump doesn’t even get that far
I’ll grant that the orange felon is consistently selfish, though.
Obama escalated Iraq and attacked Syria…
Military operations against Isis isn’t imperialism, and it is a long shot away from other presodents’ foreign policies.
The US’s foreign policy under Obama and Clinton was anti-imperalist.
That’s every country in the world.
Pretty much. But America doubly so
That’s every country in the world.
Some countries operate as administrators of shared consolidated resources. Some forget this and become America. You’ll spot the difference one day.
America Bad, yes we know
At least they are open about it this time around.
Nothing Biden gave them was free. They took on huge debt to get it.
In don’t like Trump but this is prob better than owing more debt. Not sure if the 500B is fair, but that’s for Ukraine to decide.
Bullshit. Almost all of the aid given to Ukraine from the US is in the form of non-repayable grants. Ukraine doesn’t have “huge debts” to the US. Trump wants to change this.
In May 2022, President Biden signed the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act, authorizing the US military to provide Ukraine and other Eastern European countries with equipment. The law defers repayments from Ukraine indefinitely, meaning that while the government is not required to pay back these loans now, they will have to somewhere down the line — with interest.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-money-has-the-us-given-ukraine-since-russias-invasion/
Your right.
The open ended deal is better.
What Biden gave them was peanuts. Enough to not lose everything. But not enough to take back the territory when the opportunity was there, and seemingly not even enough to hold the line as it is anymore. The only equipment they ever gave in large quantity for fighting a mechanized war was the himars launchers and ammunition and maybe the Bradleys.
Make no mistake, America NEVER had any intention of helping Ukraine win.
This is a Red alert. What he actually said, outside of the headline.
- They might give us the minerals, they may not
- Ukraine may be Russian in the future, it may not
- either way, we (USA) have all this money in the country, and we’re getting it back
we’re getting it back
Only an absolute ass would consider that a loan.
Only an idiot would think that Ukraine would actually have half a trillion dollars worth, and that they’d give it all to the USA even if USA blackmail them here. Zelensky will say lots right now to persuade the orange one. But he also won’t be in power after the war to see it through, very few leaders are retained after any way.
Ukrainian neutrality was effectively guaranteed by America, UK, and Russia when they gave up their nukes. And there is also an economic clause to this agreement
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Good thing everybody’s respecting laws and treaties these days!
good thing the country has tens of millions of absolute asses
The assumption would be post war the support would be reconciled similar to the way we handled Lend-Lease. Most of the aid would not be recovered but a portion would over a VERY long time. The US would basically have Ukraine paying interest forever while making trade deals to reduce the principle. All of them s was a play by Zelensky to kiss the ring and secure continued support. Trump just showed the world how much of a Russian ASSet he is, again.
Isn’t this Zelenskyy’s original plan that he pitched even before Trump got elected then?
The fourth point of the peace plan is economic: Zelenskyy calls on allied countries to implement “joint investment” plans to exploit Ukraine’s natural resources: “Ukraine has natural resources and critical metals worth trillions of dollars,” he notes. “These include uranium, titanium, lithium, graphite, and other strategic resources, which will either strengthen Russia or Ukraine and the democratic world.”
This is how trump operates.
Postures, bullies, makes loads of noise in order to get what someone else has already agreed to.
Then, cause he was so noisy about it, he gets all the press coverage, and the neo-nazis chock it up as another winTrump would walk into a coffee shop and threaten to buy out the place and fire everybody if they didn’t sell him a cup at the cost they’re charging. Then he’d claim victory and boast of his negotiation skills.
And a bunch of idiots would believe it.
That’s the thing, those listed items arent rare earths, arent they?
As far as I know, Ukraine has some rare earth, but I don’t think it’s particularily much. So let him make a deal for rare earths that arent really there.
Well they do have rare earth minerals valued in Trillions of dollars and it’s mostly all in or bodering Russian controlled territory.
What a cunt
The entire war has always been about their resources
The entirewar has always been about their resourcesFTFY
The entirewar has always beenabout their resourcesFTFY
FTFY
f
Blackmailer in chief.
I wish the EU was in a position to make a better offer.
It could deliver more military support. But the political system, which I’d like to keep btw, doesn’t allow a switch to war economy.
People like their social security, culture support and education and don’t want tax raises. Politicians can’t do what they want without losing support of the voters. And then there are the agendas of the many political parties in many countries…
It is, it just doesn’t have the will to do so at the moment.
I hope they muster their political capital to back Ukraine.
Every new press photo makes him look more and more like a 60s Batman villain. Louie the Lilac vibes.
So giving the US a real stake in the security of a non-NATO state is the worst thing in history now? How is this not a win-win for everyone except the military industrial complex who wants to see nothing but constant, bloody war?
“worst thing in history”, no.
“Terrible and exploitative, and untrustworthy besides”? Yes.
It has the added bonus on being exactly the thing Russia invaded Ukraine over.
And to add to this point for everyone saying how high the number is, that’s how all geopolitical negotiations work. Trumpnjust doesn’t shut his mouth so we’re hearing the initial ridiculously higher proposal. I’d be willing to bet if this goes through the actual number is guna be closer to 2-2.5 billion. Half of the initial proposal. Not because Trump is fuckin savy but because that’s how this shit usually works.
Ukraine is getting the military support to hold its own. Plus a country’s ability to hold and repay debt is what the global economy runs on so having good credit with US will likely help them in the long run.
Half of the initial proposal is $250 billion, not $2.5 billion. $250 billion is the entire GDP of Ukraine. There is no world in which half a trillion is a sensible number here
I totally meant 250 billion. No clue why I wrote it like that. My bad.
Ukraine won’t have a GDP without continued American support (or if Europe gets their heads out of their ass(es), highly unlikely). Your proposal is… what exactly?
Historically, forcing a country into unreasonably high debt immediately following a war… is a pretty bad idea for literally all parties involved.
Europe is already doing more than America. But my proposal is that maybe we don’t extort the Ukrainians into oblivion
It probably will be $500 billion, but over 20 years and not factoring in investment costs.
