Donald Trump believes the US has wasted its money on Ukraine. We gave money like it's throwing it out the window. But now he's found a way to make up for it. They have very good rare earth. As you know, we're looking for rare earth all the time. The US has just signed a brand new minerals deal with Ukraine. It grants the US access to the potential wealth buried beneath Ukrainian soil. It also conveys a brutal truth. Our foreign policy is guided by three things. Does it make America stronger? Does it make America safer and does it make America richer? This notion that Ukraine may not be worth saving unless it has something worth taking. This is unapologetically the position of the United States. I was uh appointed by you and confirmed by the Senate to be the the head of the United States Department of State. Not the world department of state, not the global department of state, the United States Department of State. He's doing whatever he needs to do. Trump is to advance and protect American economic interests. We'll supply you weapons, but we want your minerals and we'll make a profit off that or at least cover our costs. And Ukraine's president understands this. So, Vladimir Zalinski asked for this deal to bind the futures of the US and Ukraine together. These deposits are priceless. It is huge amounts of money. Huge. That is why we need to protect it. So, if we are talking about a deal, that's what the Americans want, then let's do a deal. And now they have a deal. I'll explain how it works and what it might mean. Ukraine wanted this deal to give the US something of value, worth defending. And the US wanted this deal because it needs what Ukraine has. By Kiev's estimate, around 5% of the world's critical raw materials, key ingredients in everything from missile defense to solar panels to night vision goggles. The world supply chain is controlled by China and the US has been choked off. Well, China raised the stakes. It announced a raft of counter measures. Export curbs on tungsten and other rare metals. It's a real choke point. uh at some point it becomes uh much more serious and some of these minerals are used uh in in radars in missile guidance systems and in very advanced semiconductors in magnets. So in a world where China controls 90% of the world's rare earths. It's a big deal to know that Ukraine has deposits of 22 of the 50 materials classified as critical by the US Geological Survey and the US would protect that if it had access to that. the American presence will I think keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we're doing the digging. So this new minerals deal, let's go through it. I am glad to announce the signing of today's historic economic partnership agreement between the United States and Ukraine establishing the United States Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. Here's the framework for this fund released by Ukraine's government, which we can see as a pretty intentional resetting of Ukraine US relations affirming a free, sovereign, and secure Ukraine. And there is an overt mention of the fact that Russia launched a war of aggression, which is not something you'll ordinarily hear from the United States. And there are echoes here of a deal published by Reuters about two months ago. According to that draft, the fund would be jointly owned by Ukraine and the US, and Ukraine would pay into it using 50% of all revenues earned from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian government-owned natural resource assets. That's half of all its future governmentowned resource revenue. This confirmed by Ukraine's deputy prime minister. And crucially, as confirmed the night before the deal was signed, that half is only half the deal. So, that's an important detail, right? That it's funded 50/50 by Ukraine and the United States. But then watch how Ukraine's prime minister explains the American contribution. [Music] This is critical, so I'll repeat it. American military aid counts as America's contribution to the fund, which Ukraine must match with money. Here's the relevant section of the new signed agreement. new military assistance to the government of Ukraine in any form, the capital contribution of the US partner will be deemed to be increased by the assessed value of such military assistance. So, you can start to see how this deal works, right? Where the US in effect is offered a financial incentive to be Ukraine's material ally, setting the stage for more deals in the future, which might give the US more of a reason to care. This is Biden's war. This isn't Trump's war. I'm trying to get at because while Trump at almost every turn has conveyed how much regret he has that the US backed Ukraine to the extent that it did. We feel foolish. We're just pouring money there, unsecured money, putting it in banks, and anybody could have taken it out. He does seem willing to back Ukraine's defense, fuel its war effort as long as the US gets something in return. More interesting and more promising is the prospect that um American mining companies might be granted concessions in uh Ukraine which would enable them to go in to exploit, develop, dig for those minerals. It would wean America off dependence on Chinese metals for example. But Ukraine would be paid for those and that would incidentally create a vested American commercial interest in uh Ukraine's security uh and again prosperity. The outcome of this war will be determined by the battlefield and the battlefield is determining it. And we have to understand here we as we sit on the 30th of of April 2025, the Russians have the advantage on the battlefield. Today's agreement signals clearly to Russian leadership that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. Now, it's really important to point out this deal is really just the start because according to Ukraine's deputy prime minister who signed the deal, what it doesn't do is give the US ownership of anything tangible, resources or otherwise, Ukraine would continue to call the shots. And there's nothing in this deal that says anything about Ukraine repaying the US for debts and aid over the last 3 years. What's more, the deputy prime minister's expectation is that for the first 10 years, the US doesn't pocket any of the money. Rather, it would be reinvested into Ukraine itself towards new resource projects or reconstruction. But let's game it out. Because if the ultimate interest here is in mining, that is an incredibly long-term undertaking. It can take well over a decade to identify, extract, and then separate rare earth elements from the earth itself at scale. Add to that, it's not at all clear which of Ukraine's mineral deposits are viable to begin with. One Washington think tank writes, "According to the former director general of the Ukrainian Geological Survey, there is no modern assessment of rare earth reserves in Ukraine. Existing mapping was done 30 to 60 years ago by the Soviet Union and relies on old exploration methods. Rare earth will take many years. It's the studies would have to be verified. The design of a new mine, the look at a refinery, all of these studies take time and it's a big capital infrastructure to build. There's the energy infrastructure as part of that. There's all of the environmental approvals processes of course as well which Ukraine has to go through. Then consider what's involved in maintaining such an industrialcale mining operation in a country that has been at war for 3 years and continues to be. Once a mine is up and running, it can operate for well over 50 years. And if Trump wants to move American mining assets to Ukraine because Ukraine by its own admission doesn't have the capital required to mine at scale, he can't really make anyone go. These are private companies, right? So beyond missiles and military might, there would need to be a climate of confidence. That any deal with the US will bring stability and that once the fighting stops, if it stops, Russia won't simply invade again for a third time. Do you actually create stable conditions for somebody to invest in which is the normal way round you might expect this to work or as seems to be the plan here to try to bring in investments in order to bring about stable conditions. It's a strange way of going about it particularly when there are no explicit security guarantees and there is no clear end to the war now entering its third year. Ukraine refuses to concede territory to the Russians and has not managed to win even a single security guarantee from the United States. Meanwhile, the US position appears to be that Russia should be allowed to keep some amount of the territory it has illegally captured. What concessions has Russia offered up thus far to get to the point where you're closer to peace? stopping the war, stopping taking the whole country. Pretty big concession. But set all that aside and set aside the fact that this deal is already coming 2 months late because when the two sides last intended to sign, there was a diplomatic meltdown and Zalinsky was told to leave the White House. You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards right now. You don't you're playing cards. You're gambling with World War II and what you're doing is very dis disrespectful to the country, this country. That's back to you. Have you said thank you once? It devolved quickly into a shouting match. When Zalinski exited, the minerals deal remained unsigned. But set that aside and consider the inherent volatility of any long-term plan for an administration that has by its own admission explicitly abandoned any higher principle than America first. And under President Trump, we're making a foreign policy now that's was it good for America? What the US Secretary of State means to make clear here is that a deal only works for as long as the United States says it does. There is no greater good than what is good for America. Anybody looking at the day-to-day twists and turns of US policy, whether it's towards Ukraine or towards international trade or even towards the internal structure of the United States, will not be hugely confident that even if a deal has been signed and is on paper, it will necessarily represent US policy for any length of time. These are just some of the complexities of this new mineral diplomacy, if we can call it that. a policy that has as its goal to end the war. Yes, to end the destruction, but also for the US to have a stake in whatever is left. [Music]