this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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Summary

Ukraine is hesitating to sign a U.S.-backed deal that would grant American companies access to 50% of its rare earth minerals in exchange for continued military support.

President Zelenskyy cited legal concerns and the lack of security guarantees.

The deal, pushed by Trump allies, aims to showcase Ukraine’s value to U.S. interests while reducing reliance on Chinese minerals.

However, Kyiv’s 2021 strategic partnership with the EU complicates negotiations, as European leaders resist surrendering shared resources to Washington. Talks remain ongoing.

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[–] meowmeowbeanz@sh.itjust.works 117 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The audacity to frame resource extraction as "aid" would be impressive if it weren't so transparent. Ukraine's rare earth minerals aren't collateral for loans—they’re the spoils of geopolitical brinkmanship, dressed in the rotting corpse of diplomacy.

Trump’s team operates like feudal overlords, demanding tribute from a nation under siege. Those minerals power everything from missiles to smartphones. Calling this a "reimbursement" is like mugging a drowning man and calling it debt collection.

Now they’re floating troop deployments to "guard" these assets? Please. This isn’t peacekeeping—it’s a protection racket, ensuring the extraction pipeline stays open while the propaganda machine spins conquest as charity.

[–] Geobloke@lemm.ee 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I figured it was more like the tributary system in imperial China

[–] meowmeowbeanz@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That’s a fair analogy, but even the tributary system had a veneer of mutual benefit—imperial China at least pretended to offer cultural or economic exchange. This? It’s pure extraction with none of the pretense.

The modern empire doesn’t bother with subtlety; it just calls the theft “aid” and expects applause. At least the tributary states got to keep their sovereignty on paper. Here, sovereignty is collateral damage in the race for resources.

What we’re witnessing isn’t just imperialism; it’s a corporate feudalism where nations are reduced to resource farms for the highest bidder. The tributary system had rituals; this has press releases.

[–] Geobloke@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Good point, I would have said technofuedalism, but yours is probably more apt, and describes Curtis Yarvins vision more appropriately

[–] laolin@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

China usually gave gifts back to those states which was much more valuable than the tribute itself. Koreans were famously abusing it by sending tribute multiple times a year. China had to put a limit on them because it became a problem.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Trump’s team operates like feudal overlords, demanding tribute from a nation under

That's a very apt analogy. I hadn't thought of it that way, but Trump's demands so far remind me of his stupid nonsense about making Mexico pay for his wall back in 2016.

He honestly thinks everyone's just going to lay down.

[–] meowmeowbeanz@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

He operates under the assumption that audacity equals strategy, as if shouting demands into the void will make them manifest. The "Mexico will pay for it" fiasco was the prototype: a hollow threat wrapped in nationalist theater. It's not about anyone laying down; it's about how long they can keep up the charade before the cracks show.

The real tragedy is that these tactics aren't even subtle. It's all brute force masquerading as diplomacy, a sledgehammer where a scalpel is needed. People see through it, but the machine churns on, feeding on apathy and short memories. The question isn't whether anyone lays down—it's whether anyone stands up long enough to matter.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee -4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Fuck, everyone has been giving us communists shit for the past 8 decades for explaining this is the exact way that imperialist powers operate in their colonies. Maybe we all will finally understand now that the Ukraine war was never a conflict of Russian expansionism vs Ukrainian national defence, but an imperialist proxy war between US and Russia?

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[–] tired_n_bored@lemmy.world 53 points 1 week ago (38 children)

Poor Ukraine. One side wants to kill them all and steal the land, another side wants to rape its land, not to mention bordering Belarus, Slovakia and Hungary who are the bitches of Putin. We live in a sad reality

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[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ukraine got used to weaken Putin and now the US sweeps in and recoups the cost for free. Ukrainians lose part of their country to Russia and hand over the minerals of the other half to America.

Imagine being Ukrainian and having died for this.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago

Being a US enemy is bad. Being a US ally is deadly

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the 'deal' the diaper is working on between him and ukraine is a sham.

i think the real 'deal' is between him and putin: 'give us (me) half of some of the goodies there and we'll not stand in your way to take the whole thing'

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 34 points 1 week ago

I agree that the deal is a sham, but I think the goal was to present a deal so obviously unacceptable to Ukraine that they would be bound to refuse and Trump can then point to it and say Ukraine is uncooperative therefore he can refuse to support them any further.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What happens if he signs the deal, gets the aid, beats Russia back and reneges? Serious question.

"American warship, go fuck yourself."

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The US already abandoned their promise to protect Ukraine from a Russian invasion after they agreed to give up their nuclear arsenal, so I can't imagine why they would trust us this time especially with a nutjob like Trump at the helm.

[–] FlowVoid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The US promised they would not invade Ukraine, but they never promised they would protect Ukraine.

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The US promised to aid Ukraine should they ever be invaded after giving up their nuclear arms. Go read the Budapest Memorandum, specifically section 4.

[–] FlowVoid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Section 4:

The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and The United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used

The US promised to seek action from the UN Security Council if Ukraine suffered or was threatened with nuclear attack.

Ukraine hasn't suffered a nuclear attack. Even so, the US did seek action from the Security Council, but it was predictably vetoed by Russia.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Commas. "object of act of aggression" and "object of threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used" are two different, independent, conditions.

And btw China seems to be enforcing the latter. They independently gave Ukraine nuclear guarantees, just shy of calling it a nuclear umbrella, and there has been a suspicious absence of nuclear threats against Ukraine while there's no shortage of Russian threats against NATO.

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[–] rosco385@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago

American promises aren't worth shit. Just ask the Native Americans, the Kurds, and probably a bunch more countries.

[–] perestroika@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Like a reasonable person who sees a proposal with huge future impact - he is likely consulting lawyers ("is this permissible by law?") and other politicians ("is this a good move currently or strategically?").

Then comes time to present counter-proposals. One of them may be "we get considerably more help from Europe and they don't ask for half of the country's minerals - on this background, let's revise assistance and security guarantees upwards".

Trump's current proposal is such a poorly chosen one that one could show it to Xi and ask "for this extreme price, would you reign in your vassal named Putin, and cut exports of anything with a microchip into Russia?".

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

EU could just make him a better deal?

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just tell the US they can have any resources they can liberate from Russia. We’d have tanks at Moscow in hours.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Which, seeing the treatment Ukraine is getting by the US, I assume you believe it's a bad thing right? Right?

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The US only does things selfishly, so yeah. Though Russia really doesn’t have it better.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Agreed, but tanks in Moscow aren't the solution

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If you thought that was a sincere suggestion, I didn’t /s nearly hard enough.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Not so much about your lack of /s, there's widespread russophobia since 2022 in the west and many people simply don't care what happens to so+called "orcs"

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[–] shoulderoforion@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

not worth the paper it was printed on

[–] filister@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

At this point I wonder who is worse Trump or Putin.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee -1 points 1 week ago

Wasn't the US supporting a genocide until like a month ago? Is this question really only popping right now in your head?

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[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Well duh. Trump is incapable of meaning anything he says.

[–] aleq@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Obviously this is not something you can base a deal on, but I think a lot of the stupid shit Trump is doing will be undone if the US ever has another election. So in four years, the deal will be overturned or renegotiated. Maybe it can even be declared void?

[–] tym@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I hate to break it to you, but this is Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin's party now. America died in November and gave way to some bastardized techno-autocracy-kleptocracy mutant.

Here's a great piece to get up to speed quickly. Good luck out there! https://newrepublic.com/article/183971/jd-vance-weird-terrifying-techno-authoritarian-ideas

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

The Republican Party controls the entire U.S. federal government.

Why would they ever willingly give that up? Because the laws say they have to? The laws they've been ignoring?

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