President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, rejected an offer by the Trump administration to relinquish half of the country’s mineral resources in exchange for U.S. support, according to five people briefed on the proposal or with direct knowledge of the talks.
The unusual deal would have granted the United States a 50 percent interest in all of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including graphite, lithium and uranium, according to two European officials. Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, who presented the deal to Ukraine, said Sunday that the United States wanted the minerals “as payback for the aid we’ve given them” — leaving unclear whether the deal would cover future military and financial assistance.
A Ukrainian official and an energy expert briefed on the proposal said that the Trump administration sought not only Ukraine’s minerals but additional natural resources, including oil and gas. The proposal, they said, would entitle the United States to half of Ukraine’s resource earnings — funds that are today mostly invested in the country’s military and defense production.
So now the US are officially running a protection racket! You really do have mob bosses running the place.
Michael Parenti was saying this in the 70s and 80s though
It’s like that crude joke
“Would you have sex with me for 1 million? Yes. How about for 20 instead? No, I’m not a whore! We already established that, we’re now negotiating the price”
First it was the rare earth worth X amount, now it’s half. What’s next?
They have been doing it with Arab countries for decades. Pay up or get sanctioned, bombed, invaded and couped. What some in the West wrongly perceive as bribes are actually tributes to avoid becoming the next Iraq, Syria or Libya, or worse: Palestine.
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A defence alliance