Ukraine woos Trump with prospect of mineral riches

 https://thehill.com/policy/international/5141789-ukraine-rare-earth-minerals-trump/

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is leveraging the country’s large deposits of rare earth materials and critical minerals to win the favor of President Trump ahead of high-stakes negotiations to end Russia’s war of aggression.

But negotiations between Zelensky and U.S. officials are off to a rocky start, Politico reported Saturday. Ukraine reportedly balked at a U.S. proposal calling for U.S. rights to half of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in exchange for military support.

Less than 20 percent of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including half of its rare earth deposits, are under Russian occupation, Zelensky told Reuters in an interview last week. Zelensky called for allies’ help in protecting what Ukraine controls, particularly in the eastern part of the country, which is the frontline of fighting. 

“We need to stop Putin and protect what we have,” Zelensky said. 

Zelensky “knows Trump is transactional, so he’s playing to a rhetoric that works,” Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Hill.