Donald Trump is holding a gun to the head of Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding huge reparations payments and laying claim to half of Ukraine’s oil, gas, and hydrocarbon resources as well as almost all its metals and much of its infrastructure. The latest version of his “minerals deal”, obtained by The Telegraph, is unprecedented in the history of modern diplomacy and state relations. “It is an expropriation document,” said Alan Riley, an expert on energy law at the Atlantic Council. “There are no guarantees, no defence clauses, the US puts up nothing. “The Americans can walk away, the Ukrainians can’t. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” The text leaves little doubt that Mr Trump’s chief objective is to incorporate Ukraine as a province of America’s oil, gas and resource industries. It dovetails with parallel talks between the US and Russia for a comprehensive energy partnership, including plans to restore West Siberian gas flows to Europe in large volumes, with US companies and Trump-aligned financiers gaining a major stake in the business.
The revived gas trade would flow through Ukraine’s network, and later via the Baltic as the sabotaged Nord Stream pipelines are brought back on stream. The new draft states that the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund will control Ukraine’s “critical minerals or other minerals, oil, natural gas (including liquified [sic] natural gas), fuels or other hydrocarbons and other extractable materials”. All critical materials listed in the US Energy Act are covered, including both rare earths and 50 other minerals such as lithium, titanium, cobalt, aluminium and zinc. The US will control infrastructure linked to natural resources “including, but not limited to, roads, rail, pipelines and other transportation assets; ports, terminals and other logistics facilities and refineries, processing facilities, natural gas liquefaction and/or regasification facilities and similar assets”. Three of the five board members on the new fund will be chosen by the US. It will have “A” shares and golden shares. America will receive all the royalties until Ukraine has paid off at least $100bn of war debt to the US, with 4pc interest added – less than the $350bn floated earlier by Mr Trump but still half of Ukraine’s GDP, and unpayable.
The fund is registered in Delaware but under New York jurisdiction. The US has the first right of refusal on all projects. It has authority to examine the books and accounts of any Ukrainian ministry or agency whenever it wants during working hours. The US can veto sales of Ukraine’s resources to other countries, which might mean banning rare earth sales to China but might also restrict sales to Europe. Prof Riley said: “It is not compatible with EU membership, and perhaps that is part of the purpose. I have to wonder whether the real intention might not be to force Zelensky to reject it.” The US pays in no investment capital, deeming its contribution to be past military aid. No security guarantee is offered.
19th century-style treaty
The contract makes a few rhetorical nods to Ukraine, stating that the “American people desire to invest alongside the Ukrainian people in a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine”. It acknowledges Ukraine’s contribution to peace “by voluntarily abandoning the world’s third-largest arsenal of nuclear weapons” in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994. However, the terms are if anything even harsher than the original drafts, which were deemed predatory and neo-colonial by international lawyers, and which caused outrage in much of Europe. The document smacks of the unequal treaties imposed on China by the European powers in the 19th century. It is a cruel way to treat a democratic ally fighting for its political existence and defending the West’s outer line against Russian imperialism.
The Trump White House says Putin would not dare to attack if America has commercial skin in the game, but this has no currency in a context where it is also negotiating sweetheart energy deals with Kirill Dmitriev, the McKinsey-trained head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. The Russian media says these talks cover the return of US drillers to the Kara Sea and the Arctic, but also cover US fracking technology. Germany’s Bild Zeitung said talks have been underway for weeks in Switzerland to reopen the Nord Stream 2 pipelines, conducted secretly by ex-Stasi agent Matthias Warnig and Mr Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell, a man known for his Kremlin sympathies. The terms would give US contractors operational control and a fat revenue stream, creating money out of “thin air”. A cynic might call it a legal “donation” to Mr Trump’s circle by the Kremlin. “There is talk about Nord Stream. It would be interesting if the Americans put pressure on Europe, to make them stop refusing our Russian gas,” said Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister.
Diplomatic disaster for the West
Ukrainians are expected to accept the fig-leaf assurance of the minerals deal even as Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s negotiator, parrots Kremlin’s propaganda, validating the sham referenda of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, and pre-emptively ceding the four oblasts that Putin is not even close to conquering. If Mr Witkoff listened to the hearings of the Senate Intelligence Committee this week he would have heard General Jeff Kruse, head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency, testifying that Russia is having serious trouble prosecuting the war and will run out of steam altogether by the end of the year – if the West holds its nerve. Putin has exhausted his rainy day fund and is blowing the gaskets of his military Keynesian economy. Ukrainian drones are hammering his oil export facilities, which is why he may need an energy truce more than Ukraine. “Trump has blown a winning hand,” said Tim Ash, from Chatham House. Diplomatic disaster for the West is now unfolding briskly on all fronts.
Mr Trump has agreed to help Russia restore its “access to the world market for agricultural and fertiliser exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions” as reward for the non-concession of a Black Sea maritime truce, which also helps Russia more than Ukraine. Putin specifically wants Russia’s farm bank, Rosselkhozbank, restored to the Swift payments system, and he wants the embargo lifted on farm equipment, which has dual-use capability for his war machine. He is well on his way to securing both. Europe’s sanctions regime is near to disintegration as well. Hungary and Slovakia have both said they will not vote for a roll over of existing curbs, which means that sanctions will automatically expire in July, and so will control over €200bn (£170bn) of Russian central bank holdings in Europe.
“If even one EU member state votes against the asset freeze, the freeze will lapse. The Central Bank of Russia can then immediately withdraw its deposit from Euroclear,” said Anton Moiseienko and Yuliya Ziskina, from the Royal United Services Institute. “For all the talk of reparations and accountability, the EU would find itself handing over €200bn to the regime that launched Europe’s biggest war since World War Two – an Afghanistan-style moment for EU foreign policy.” That is where we are heading with Europe’s “carefully calibrated dithering”. Europe and Britain will end up having to foot the entire bill for rebuilding what remains of Ukraine at the end of this betrayal, while Mr Trump scoops up Ukraine’s chief means of economic recovery, and Putin gets his €200bn back. John Ratcliffe, CIA director, told the Senate committee this week that Mr Trump knows it would be dangerous if Putin achieved his “maximalist” objectives. You could have fooled me. All evidence so far is that Trump & Putin Inc is a perfectly harmonious joint venture.
