Trump blackmailing Ukraine for are earth minerals would be funny if it weren’t so venal and evil.
The truth is that the rare earth minerals the Ukraine claim to have was an ill advised ruse used by the Ukrainians to try and tempt Trump, unfortunately he was tempted but in a bad way.
This is a case of the Zelensky who cried rare earth mineral.
Gordon Campbell, the most underrated blogger in NZ breaks it down…
One of the odder aspects of Donald Trump’s transactional approach to Ukraine – give us access to your reserves of rare earth minerals, as payback for what we’ve spent in your defence – is that most media coverage has assumed that yeah, that sounds like Trump. Follow the money. The more significant point, as Javier Blas pointed out in a Bloomberg News column, is that Ukraine doesn’t actually have much in the way of rare earth minerals.
This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. As Blas says, the Pentagon had claimed that there were US $1Trillion worth of lithium deposits in Afghanistan, which the Pentagon claimed had the potential to make Afghanistan “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” This was a fantasy. Similarly, the authoritative US Geological Survey shows no rare earth listings for Ukraine, either as reserves, or as mined production figures. China, Vietnam, Burma, Australia, Brazil, Canada – and Greenland ! – do figure prominently.
Ukraine got itself into this fix:
The hype about the Ukrainian rare earths began with Ukrainians themselves. Desperate to find a way to engage Trump, they miscalculated presenting the then-incoming president a “victory plan” in November that talked up — way, way up — the potential of the country’s mineral resources. Soon, they lost control of the narrative.
On Feb. 3, Trump emphatically said the Ukrainians had “very valuable rare earths.” Always keen to be perceived as a dealmaker, he added: “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.” He doubled down a few days later, telling Fox News on Feb. 11 about his talks with Ukrainian officials: “I told them that I want the equivalent like $500 billion worth of rare earth.”
$500 billion? Reportedly, the world’s entire annual production of the 17 rare earth minerals is worth only about $15 billion a year. Ukraine does have some mineral deposits of scandium, and it also earns some money from its mining for titanium and gallium but these mines tend to be located in eastern regions now controlled by Russia. There are tiny rare earth deposits at the Novopoltavske deposit, discovered by the Soviets in 1970 – but as Blas explains, because these cannot be extracted at a commercially viable rate of return, they remain undeveloped today, 50 years after being discovered.
Finally, a document produced in Lithuania and bearing a NATO imprint has been cited – online – as vindicating Trump’s repeated arguments that Ukraine is laden with rare earth minerals. With good reason, Bloomberg News is deeply sceptical:
Although affiliated with the military alliance, bearing its name and logo, the entity [in Lithuania that produced the report] and its counterparts are autonomous bodies outside the command chain. The document is provocative: “Ukraine emerges as a key potential supplier of rare earth metals such as titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium…” The list should ring every alarm. Anyone with a passing knowledge of chemistry knows none of those minerals are rare earths.
Why NATO’s imprint is attached to the report, which appears devoid of basic fact-checking, is beyond comprehension. A spokesperson told me the views reflected those of the author rather than NATO — something the document doesn’t say. The report, uncorrected, is still available online.
But this only highlights the basic problem with fact checking Donald Trump, and his assertions. He’s not much interested in facts and policy details and assumes most of his audience feels likewise. That doesn’t make him stupid. It means he’s really engaged in shifting the American public’s attitudes to Ukraine.
In this case, rather than having the US being seen to be throwing Ukraine to the wolves, he has chosen to portray Ukraine as a greedy ingrate that is hoarding its own wealth while sponging off everyone else. There will always be an audience for that kind of message. It is the foreign policy equivalent of “people on welfare are driving around in Cadillacs” on your tax dollar, friend. In Trumpworld, Ukraine is the welfare queen of geo-politics.
…the whole thing was a bullshit spin that Trump took seriously.
That Trump is forcing the Ukraine to hand over are earth minerals in return for security agreements highlights that Trump no longer wants to be a Global SuperPower and now wants to be a Regional Superpower.
Everyone is scrambling to understand what Trumpism actually means as we stand aghast that he would force Ukraine to surrender, then charge them $500billion in rare earth minerals to protect them while walking away from NATO.
I think there are a couple of things all in play that demand attention to comprehend the enormity of what is going to happen to the global order.
Putin, Evangelical Rapture, and Mar-a-Lago as the 4th Rome:
The difference between a war crime and a genocide tends to be the self belief of the person committing violence that God is on their side.
In 988AD, Vladimir the Great, whom Putin takes his name from, mass baptised 1000 Russians at the River Nee-Proh in what has become the founding spiritual moment in Orthodox Russian Christianity as the moment Russia became Christian and led to a cultural narrative structure that Moscow is the third Rome and was a homeland for Christianity.
What isn’t widely known is that Putin himself is a very staunch Russian Orthodox Christianand that he has used the Russian Orthodox Church as an enormous control mechanism over the Russian people.
Putin has spent billions rebuilding the Churches smashed down by Communism and uses his relationship with the Church for political advantage. It was the Orthodox Church who first praised Putin for annexing Crimea, a region with much religious importance for the Church.
in 2022 the Ukrainian branch of the Orthodox Church severed ties with the Russian branch because they felt Putin was having too much influence over it.
If Moscow is the third Rome, Kyiv is the second Jerusalem.
Trump on the other hand is a cynical tyrant who has understood the political power of resentment better than anyone since Hitler.
He has used the Undermensch to empower the ubermensch with his brand of wounded masculinity.
His surviving an assassins bullet has created a belief within Trump that God has saved him for a special purpose.
Both Putin and Trump now believe they are on a mission from God and terrifyingly so do Trumps evangelical MAGA fanatics who believe in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations whereby if they trigger Armageddon they will start the Rapture which is why the Evangelical Movement in America has donated hundreds of millions to extremist zionists.
I think Trump sees Putin and Russia as part of the 3 Romes and believes Mar-a-Lago is the 4th Rome as some sort of new Christofascist Regional Super Power Old Word Order.
Alexander Dugin and Trump’s New Christofascist Regional Super Power Old Word Order:
Alexander Dugin is one of the most influential Russian philosophers when it comes to influencing Putin AND Trump. He argues Russia needs to own the Ukraine to protect Russia and his multipolar arguments that Marco Rubio himself repeated in his Munich speech tell us everything we need to know about how Trump is reverting back to the Old World Order.
Trump sees the cost of being a Global Super power is wasteful and sees the funding of global institutions as a waste of American money. He wants to make America a Regional Super Power, adopting Dugin’s philosophy of multipolar interests.
This means Trump is more focused on forcing Canada to join America, taking Greenland and sexing the Panama Canal. That’s being a Regional Super Power.
He is inviting Putin to have his own Regional Super Power status by gifting him 20% of the Ukraine and making Europe pay more for his largesse to protect them, because ultimately Trump wants to make Putin an ally.
Why? Because in Trump’s warped view of God saving him for a special purpose, he is reuniting the old 3 Romes, including Mar-a-largo as the 4th Rome, taking back Gaza and will join forces with Russia to take out the godless Chinese.
Because that’s really why Trump is buttering up Putin, he believes there is more in common binding them culturally and Religion wise than binds Russia and China.
Amerika + Russia vs China:
The end game of Trump smashing the global status quo by unfunding Americas global obligations for Regional dominance and inviting Russia to do the same is ultimately about Trump making Putin an ally to jointly deal to China.
While America will take Canada, Greenland and Panama as Putin takes 20% of Ukraine, Trump may either shrug if Xi does the same and invades Taiwan or he could make Taiwan the redline and demand Taiwan pay more for their defence.
Trump may well look at China live firing in the Tasman Sea as a reason to send a nuclear ship here.
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Trump is just retooling the USA, palming its war, via its proxy, the Ukraine, with Russia, off to Europe to chiefly shoulder the financial and political burden upon. While in the meantime, he, the USA, looks to start conflict, primarily with China (Iran and Venezuela also possibilities). China understands this, hence what we are seeing them do in the Pacific…but again, China is the problem, because well, we devotedly lap up everything the Western media has to say about China…..
Delusional
Agreed…the USA couldn’t even dent Russia, why they would dare to take on China despite this glowing set back, this is without doubt – disillusion. Granted they are only using proxies to fight their wars at this stage, still, lets hope they don’t throw us into the mire before they commit their own mob towards their latest attempt to stay atop of the world.
Zelyinski is clearly no push over .Fancy having the media present during negotiations .Does trump think he is still filming for the apprentice .Clearly he was told he was fired and did not like being told that .Seems the real reason for the war and the USA sucking up to Putin is to gain a few minerals .
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