Donald Trump might have made a bad mineral deal with Ukraine

 https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-bad-mineral-deal-ukraine-volodymyr-zelenskyy/

President Donald Trump, who prides himself on his negotiating skills, is on the brink of clinching a deal that would give the U.S. preferential access to Ukraine’s extensive raw material reserves.

But Trump might end up getting less than he bargained for. Estimates of Ukraine’s supposed mineral wealth are based on outdated Soviet-era surveys that didn’t take into account the viability or cost of developing them.

The latest draft of the agreement, cited by Ukrainian newspaper Economic Pravda, would see Kyiv pay 50 percent of revenues from its state-owned natural resources into a fund that would invest in Ukraine. There would be no U.S. security guarantees in return.

On paper, the U.S. stands to make a killing from the deal.

In practice, the extent of Ukraine’s mineral patrimony is still largely a mystery.