President Volodymyr Zelensky left the White House early without signing a mineral deal with the United States following a heated exchange with President Donald Trump on Feb. 28.
Zelensky departed in his motorcade around 1:45 p.m. local time, without holding a joint news conference scheduled for later in the day, after the two leaders got into a heated argument while speaking with journalists in the Oval Office.
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CNN reported that following the exchange, Zelensky and Trump left to separate rooms, with the Ukrainian delegation wanting to continue talks with the Trump administration.
Trump later ordered his officials to tell the Ukrainian officials to leave the White House, despite protest from the Ukrainian delegation.
So there’s a huge deposit between Mariupol and Donetsk, which is in Russian controlled territory. It’s probably the easiest to mine and most economically viable… I think that was the original plan Zelensky was thinking. Get some American mining infrastructure there and then thr US has skin in the game.
Trump seems to have a survey of the entire countries rare earth resources and is just taking the entire estimated value and splitting in half. Which as you pointed out is stupid, because a lot of the deposits are smaller or would be much more expensive to mine.
I think this is why Putin also was quick to mention cooperating with the USA on minerals in Russia (which from his POV includes those regions). I’m sure Zelenskyy/Ukraine would want to try to use that as leverage but I don’t think Trump bites.
There are some substantial reserves of various minerals elsewhere but not sure how viable and valuable they really are.
You mean in Ukraine? There are tons of other stuff to mine and even some rare earth outside of controlled area… It just is probably less profitable to mine. Here is a map