Althouse: "Ukraine on Saturday was seriously considering a revised American proposal for its vast natural resources that contains virtually the same provisions..."

February 22, 2025

"Ukraine on Saturday was seriously considering a revised American proposal for its vast natural resources that contains virtually the same provisions..."

"... that Kyiv previously rejected as too onerous, according to a draft document of the new proposal. Some of the terms appear even tougher than in a previous draft. Though Ukraine had not finalized the deal as of Saturday afternoon, its assent to the terms would represent a capitulation to American demands after a week of intense pressure from President Trump. The American president views access to Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth as necessary repayment for the billions the United States has provided Kyiv for its war against Russia...."

The NYT reports, in "U.S. Pressing Tough Demands in Revised Deal for Ukraine’s Minerals/The Trump administration wants revenues from Ukraine’s natural resources, according to a draft obtained by The New York Times, with no security guarantee in exchange."

48 comments:

n.n said...: Kiev needs to recall its coup representatives.; 2/22/25, 10:28 AM
rehajm said...: …a beautiful phone call…; 2/22/25, 10:31 AM
Wince said...: “Son of a bitch,” they (being Ukraine), capitulated.

Where have I heard that before?; 2/22/25, 10:31 AM
hombre said...: The Art of the Deal.; 2/22/25, 10:33 AM
JRoberts said...: So we're finally getting some collateral for all the billions in "loans" that Biden gave to Ukraine.; 2/22/25, 10:40 AM
paulr said...: Nothing quite like kicking a man while he’s down and then taking his stuff. In exchange for what? I haven’t really heard yet.

Some people will be proud of this mafia like behavior from our government, because they have completely lost their moral compass, and the world has gone a little mad.; 2/22/25, 10:40 AM
doctrev said...: I love how massive complaining by governments is taken as proof that President Trump is being "unreasonable." And then they sign anyways. It goes to show that he's a better negotiator than they are, AND that the globalist axis is weaker than we ever thought it was.; 2/22/25, 10:40 AM
Peachypeachy said...: Draft obtained by the new York Time s?????; 2/22/25, 10:44 AM
Dave Begley said...: Trump, the negotiator, wins again.; 2/22/25, 10:46 AM
mccullough said...: The Gravy Train is over.; 2/22/25, 10:46 AM
Jupiter said...: So we didn't get Zelensky's new house in Egypt as part of the deal?; 2/22/25, 10:47 AM
Tom T. said...: Zelensky campaigning against Trump has to go down as one of the most monumentally stupid foreign policy blunders in modern history.; 2/22/25, 10:51 AM
Earnest Prole said...: “Zelensky, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You fucked up... you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it! Maybe we can help ...”; 2/22/25, 10:51 AM
gilbar said...: wait?
I thought The Ukraine was WINNING this war?
wasn't that what we KEPT being told?
If The Ukraine is WINNING, shouldn't They be making the terms?
Maybe someone can explain it? (Or, probably just insult me); 2/22/25, 10:59 AM
Jupiter said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/22/25, 10:59 AM
Jupiter said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/22/25, 11:00 AM
Jupiter said...: "Trump’s inner circle believes best option for Zelensky is to leave for France"
(TASS); 2/22/25, 11:01 AM
tcrosse said...: Wasn't a portion of what we gave to Ukraine already paid back to Biden?; 2/22/25, 11:04 AM
Aggie said...: "Some people will be proud of this mafia like behavior from our government....."

Who knows? There are some people that are proud of forking over billions of taxpayer funds with no audit trail and no obvious accounting of where it has gone, meanwhile Ukraininan politicians become multi-millionaires traveling with suitcases full of greenbacks and loading up on luxury items at their new European villas, all from a bankrupt country. Which is the Mafia-like behavior?; 2/22/25, 11:05 AM
Howard said...: The beauty of this approach is that Ukraine has to be more fiscally responsible and at the same time the United States has staked its claim on part of the territory and will want to defend that to maintain its lucrative use. All without putting boots on the ground. I hope they work out a deal.; 2/22/25, 11:07 AM
n.n said...: Doesn't Zelensky have a mansion in Florida? Any real, commercial, or political properties in New York?; 2/22/25, 11:12 AM
Paddy O said...: "in exchange for what? "

As Rubio noted in his recent interview, in exchange for US presence and commitments to Ukraine. They won't be getting I to NATO, but the US will have a strategic connection. I'd Russia wants to try this again, they will have to contemplate the worth of attacking US interests, which we tend to defend.

That's honesty better than NATO, as it brings in the strongest parter without the hassle of the other EU countries.

This may not be agreed with by some but it's not at all saying the deal is without worth to Ukraine, who'd otherwise have it take by Russia or sell the rights to others before too long; 2/22/25, 11:16 AM
Amexpat said...: Ukraine fighting Russia has helped US interests by weakening Russia's ability to project power elsewhere. Evidence of that is Assad's fall in Syria because the Russians no longer have the resources to prop him up. Assad's fall weakens Iran, perhaps US #2 adversary, as they no longer have access to help Hezbolla and Israel can now more easily fly over Syrian airspace to attack Iran.

Also, if Kiev fell without a great cost, and with no reaction from the West, then China perhaps would have been embolden to start something with Taiwan.

It's hard to quantify how much this is worth, but many Ukranians have died in a war that's in the US interest for them not lose. That should be worth something. At least some respect.; 2/22/25, 11:31 AM
pacwest said...: @Paddy O
You beat me to it. Ukraine couldn't get a better deal than having American interests embedded there. Much better than anything NATO could offer. Of course Putin is aware of this and his signature is the one that matters.; 2/22/25, 11:36 AM
Balfegor said...: Re: Jupiter:

"Trump’s inner circle believes best option for Zelensky is to leave for France"

So . . almost the same as the Biden administration's original plan? The original US response was to put some minor cosmetic sanctions on Russia (nothing that would interfere with Russian energy supplies to the EU), US generals predicting a swift collapse of the Ukrainian defenses, and a government in exile headed by Zelensky. Zelensky's charisma, his Churchillian performance in the early months of the war, gave him the political capital with American and European voters to force their elected governments to revise, bit by bit, their original plans, and pour more and more money and resources into propping up the Ukraine. For the leader of a desperately poor, ramshackle state held together by duct tape, graft, and tatted up neo-Nazi gangs, it was an impressive achievement, without any parallel I can think of. But I think that incredible success, which has allowed the Ukraine to keep up the fight against its larger and significantly richer and more developed invader long after its internal resources had been exhausted, has sort of gone to his head. I think he thought he could replicate the feat with Trump, rolling him just like he rolled Biden -- hence his hostile tone in public. And we'll see how this plays out, I suppose. But I think he has misjudged his position very badly.; 2/22/25, 12:05 PM
Harun said...: Ukraine supposedly floated this idea in the first place.

Also, people who are ignorant of history, calling this mean or greedy - why don't you check out Lend Lease.

Yeah, we charged the British. They paid us back until 2006.

Even Russia paid back some Lend Lease.

And that was fighting actual Nazis. So asking for some financial stakes in a strategic mineral that are not currently being mined and would require investment seems smart to me from both sides.

You know why we defend the Saudis? they have oil. So we have an interest.

This creates a US strategic interest in Ukraine, which makes any security guarantee stronger.

Zelensky going bananas and then Trump following suit is weird, because this shit is all in "talks about talks" phase.

He wanted to be in the room with the Russians? Dude, its talks about talks and shuttle diplomacy.; 2/22/25, 12:24 PM
tommyesq said...: In exchange for what? I haven’t really heard yet.

You must not be a good reader, as it was right in the segment that was included in the post - necessary repayment for the billions the United States has provided Kyiv for its war against Russia.; 2/22/25, 12:27 PM
Robert Cook said...: paulR said:

"Nothing quite like kicking a man while he’s down and then taking his stuff. In exchange for what? I haven’t really heard yet."

paulr's comment needs to be reiterated. So I did it for him. This is our nation, already cruel, but now with extra cruelty sauce, courtesy of our new Chef (sic) Turd-in-Chief, "DTrain"* Trump!

(Derailed Train)

Some people will be proud of this mafia like behavior from our government, because they have completely lost their moral compass, and the world has gone a little mad.; 2/22/25, 12:44 PM
Robert Cook said...: Another fricking error I can't correct. The last paragraph (not italicized) in my comment above belongs as part of paulr's original comment.; 2/22/25, 12:47 PM
pacwest said...: "In exchange for what? I haven’t really heard yet."

Didn't you read the answers to your question in the above comments? You guys just tune out anything not contained within your bubble. It gets tedious.; 2/22/25, 12:58 PM
JAORE said...: No one, me included, can be sure if this strategy will work, fail or fall on the infinite possibilities between the two.
But, for those saying this is an awful plan.... what is yours? Biden dribbled arms (and sweet, sweet cash) to Ukraine. Net result was an essential stalemate where Russia lost hundreds of thousands of people an did the much smaller Ukraine. Ukraine infrastructure is pummeled. Out stockpiles of armaments are being depleted.
Is that the direction we should continue? What the holy-F is the end game... Another forever war?; 2/22/25, 1:06 PM
Amexpat said...: @JAORE

From a cyncial, realpolitikk point of view, the war in Ukraine is in the US interest. There's a paralell with the Soviet's invasion in Afganistan. If the Soviets won there with little cost than it would have been a huge net gain for them and a net loss for the US in the global arena. Instead the Soviets got bogged down in a costly war that was a major factor in the fall of the Soviet Empire. Russia is much weaker now than when the Ukraine war started as shown by what happened in Syria. If they had won quickly the opposite would have been the case.

Trump has presented his initative as being motivated by a concern to end the bloodshed. I don't buy that, but would be very happy if I were wrong.; 2/22/25, 1:24 PM
pacwest said...: "moral compass"

JHC!! My moral compass (like Trump's) points to the thousands of innocents being slaughtered. Yours appears to point to a continuation of that slaughter because Orange Man Bad. Get a grip.; 2/22/25, 1:32 PM
Indigo Red said...: A few of the comments are close to the strategery. The minerals in question lie in eastern Ukraine between Russia and the Dnieper River. This is the area Russia originally invaded for conquest. Most of the rare earths are just north of the Donbas that Russia currently occupies, well into Ukraine nearly to Kiev. Russia wants it without interference. Ukraine wants to keep it. The US wants access without boots on the ground. An American business stake puts Putin in a bind in which he cannot take the mineral rich area without attacking American interests and the resultant defense by American military and economic power. The US enters the fray without combat participation and Russia cannot move forward. Ukraine wins, America wins, Russia loses.; 2/22/25, 1:55 PM
doctrev said...: JAORE said...
"Is that the direction we should continue? What the holy-F is the end game... Another forever war?"

2/22/25, 1:06 PM
I know that's a rhetorical question, but yes! The oligarchy absolutely wants yet another forever war. You have a congenital retard here babbling about a "huge net gain" geopolitically from holding a worthless plot of rock and sand.

If the globalist drones were actually good at their strategic assessments, then Russia could be pushed over by any European Union force. As it is, sending "peacekeepers" isn't just likely to see a total slaughter of Team Rainbow, but would justify immediate Russian action in the Baltics and Scandinavia.; 2/22/25, 1:56 PM
Ne exeat said...: Let's see:
1. We get strategic minerals and some pay back for our support during the war.
2. We get to defend our claim to said minerals.
3. Russia is restrained from more adventures in Ukraine because we're there.
4. The war ends, Putin saves face.
5.; 2/22/25, 2:37 PM
Ne exeat said...: 5. I accept your terms.; 2/22/25, 2:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Jupiter (11:01am) quotes TASS (Russian state-owned news agency) on what Trump insiders think Zelenskyy should do. It doesn't seem to occur to him to ask (a) how would they know? (b) are they permitted to publish anything except blatant Putinite propaganda?

And speaking of Putinite propaganda, he asks (10:47am) about Zelenskyy's "new house in Egypt". When the first reports came out that Zelenskyy had bought a two-billion-dollar (I think it was) mansion in the Miami area, my neighbor looked into it. She's half flaming left-winger, half apolitical nothing-will-ever-get-better-so-why-bother, and doesn't care at all about Ukraine, but she's from Miami, so she was curious. It took her 10 minutes on the web to figure out that it was an obvious lie (the owner of the house was known, and it was not for sale) and that the stories could all be easily traced back to Russian government sources, so it was in fact Putinite propaganda. A few months later, we heard that he'd bought his mother-in-law a billion-dollar mansion in Egypt and an Egyptian reporter investigating it had been murdered. It was obvious to anyone who had been paying attention the first time that this was another Russian lie that no one should believe: "fool me once", etc. The fact that the prime minister of Egypt said it was a lie and that no one could find any evidence of a murdered reporter in the time frame nailed that down, but some (Jupiter) are still desperate to believe, or willing to pass on lies. I believe there was a third claim about a mansion in the south of France, again an obvious lie.; 2/22/25, 3:08 PM
The Godfather said...: Like any sensible person, I support PEACE between Russia and Ukraine. In 1940 I would have supported PEACE between the Soviet Union and Ukraine (but then Ukraine was PART of the Soviet Union). But does that have to mean that Ukraine, now an independent State, must become part of Russia again? No, I hope not.; 2/22/25, 5:16 PM
Lazarus said...: So that's the opening offer (or maybe "demand" would be a better word), but that won't be what the final deal is. Leaking and printing the story is just a way of spreading suspicion and chaos.

If the White House thinks the best thing would be Zelensky leaving for France, they are idiots. Batista fled and Cuba tumbled into Castro's hands. Flight is a confession of guilt and a prelude to collapse. We have f___ed up enough things in Southeast Asia and the Middle East (and Eastern Europe as well) and don't need any more bright ideas for regime change from Washington DC.; 2/22/25, 5:22 PM
Peachypeachy said...: Balfegor…
#; 2/22/25, 6:05 PM
Anonymous Coward said...: Trump's reverse Marshall Plan.

A bit like a protection racket, but without the protection.; 2/22/25, 6:35 PM
boatbuilder said...: Howard gets it right.
Things I never thought I would type.
When you're right you're right.; 2/22/25, 8:51 PM
boatbuilder said...: Trump has presented his initative as being motivated by a concern to end the bloodshed. I don't buy that, but would be very happy if I were wrong.

You are wrong. I hope that cheers you up.
Russia is weaker. Sure. So is...Ukraine. There are hundreds of thousands of dead young men. For what?

Didn't we learn this lesson 50 years ago?; 2/22/25, 9:01 PM
Michael McNeil said...: Another fricking error I can't correct.

Sure you can. As Althouse has suggested, delete and repost.; 2/22/25, 9:22 PM
Keith said...: When the USSR collapsed Ukraine was told to give up its nukes but it's OK... We'll protect you! Don't trust the USA's protections. We told Gaddafi to give up his WMD if he wanted to stay in power. He did. So Hillary Clinton took him out. There can always be a new government that will sell you out.

Surely the American people are not going to fund the Ukrainian economy forever. So it's a question of when we bail, not if. Surely Putin and everyone else recognizes this. HOWEVER - if there were an American interest in Ukraine, USA realistically could stay there forever. In that case no way Putin attacks USA. There is no realistic way Trump could negotiate with Putin and say if you do this we'll do that. Putin knows it's just a matter of time before American resolve disappears. HOWEVER if Putin sees that Trump is maneuvering himself to establish a permanent USA interest in Ukraine all of a sudden the entire calculation changes. There is no reason USA need EVER leave Ukraine - we are taking their mineral resources! All of a sudden Putin has a reason to negotiation in faith.

It's a brilliant strategy by Trump. No one from Biden thought of it and as soon as it was proposed it became so obvious this is the right best solution.; 2/22/25, 11:00 PM
Keith said...: paulr said...
Nothing quite like kicking a man while he’s down and then taking his stuff. In exchange for what? I haven’t really heard yet.

Some people will be proud of this mafia like behavior from our government, because they have completely lost their moral compass, and the world has gone a little mad.

2/22/25, 10:40 AM
...
It's not our war. It's Europe's responsibility. They've been riding our backs, not paying anything for their own security since WW2. Extremely expensive social safety net at our expense. They get cutting edge medications with research paid for on our backs. We had disasters in FL, NC, and CA and our citizens our suffering. It's not our war. I want to see Putin lose but it's time to let Europe support themselves.; 2/22/25, 11:01 PM
Drago said...: LLR-democratical Rich ("kakk and now "Anonymous Coward"): "Trump's reverse Marshall Plan.
A bit like a protection racket, but without the protection."

LOL!

LLR-democratical Rich was caught copying verbatim the posts of others from other blogs, including comments from someone named "Anonymous Coward"!

So what does the Harry Sisson of Althouse blog do after disappearing in shame for several days after being exposed?

He pops back on Althouse and steals the blog handle of at least one commenter to try and make it seem these are his thoughts!

My God! What an embarrassment!; 2/23/25, 2:54 AM