By Anjan Roy
Three years after it was started on February 24, 2022, the war in Ukraine is coming to end. True to his claims, the US president, Donald Trump, is striking deals on all sides to bring this war to a close. True. Trump has shamefully deserted all principles and concluded a secret kind of understanding with Russian president in search if his MAGA goals.
Leading western news agencies are reporting an ambitious minerals deal between the USA and Ukraine which in effect herald the end of the war. President Zelensky is scheduled to visit the White House on Friday and sign the deal with President Trump.
With Ukraine, Trump is homing in with this deal to develop its myriad natural resources — oil and gas, titanium and rare earths and other minerals — which are currently under the stranglehold of China globally. Ukraine has 22 of the critical minerals which have been listed by the US for various applications like defence to EV battery manufacturing.
Some of the resources identified in Ukraine, no less than 85% of these are currently processed in China. It is difficult for USA if China puts a brake on their supplies to buyers overseas.
The value of these minerals are estimated from around $100 billion to $500 billion and should be a big breather for the US in its spat with China. Independent access to these mineral resources would help US to threaten China more aggressively.
American deal with Ukraine is said to be a “protection racket”: $2 in resources for every $1 dollar of help that the US provided the country so far to fight the Russians. The funds generated from the resources deal should be utilised for reconstruction of the country. That would mean business for construction firms of the United States as well.
The joint development of these minerals by America and Ukraine on the latter’s soil would also mean effectively ceasefire and end of hostilities. It looks like the deals were done at gunpoint. Donald Trump has scant respect for an international system based on the rule of law and territorial integrity.
So the deal virtually gives formal recognition to Russian claims on the occupied parts of Ukraine. That does give a kind of absolution to the Russian president for his act of aggression. The position has been affirmed in the UN Resolution on Ukraine in which Russia has not been described as an aggressor.
This is a complete reversal of policy. US has voted in the company of Russia and North Korea, of all countries.
More so, the US was voting against the EU countries and its traditional allies. That changed the entire geo-political picture. Russia and America voting together against EU and others. This is the first time Americans and the European voted in the UN on opposing sides.
Significantly enough, there have been two critical abstentions on the Resolution, one of these being the limitless friend of Russia. The loud abstentions are from China and Iran. The sudden proximity of US and Russia has undone years of Chinese diplomacy to drive a wage between the Russia and America and loop Russia into Chinese circuits tightly.
Thus, the Ukraine deal of America has double dealings with several others as a follow up. The deal would isolate China in several ways from Russia and bring the latter into a kind of US sphere. Of course, although China was giving support to Russia in course of the Ukraine war, Russia was made to feel the junior partner to China.
On the other hand, western European countries, namely EU and UK, stand isolated. Their steady friend is gone. They have developed strained relations with China. Without much of a security heft left with them, they also fall prey to the mercies of Russia. But France has still delivered some diplomacy scores over America in its home ground.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, had cut short the US present, Donald Trump, in course of a joint press conference in the White House on Wednesday. For once, the French president had played the upper hand in the joint press conference and he corrected Trump on several occasions.
With his French subtitles and nuances, Macron had easily outflanked Trump when he claimed that the Europeans did not really pay for defence of Ukraine that US did. Macron intervened firmly to point out that the EU had provided funds for Ukraine defence: “Money, real money”. Trump was silenced.
Veteran White House correspondents pointed out that for once Trump kept quiet in the press conference as Macron elaborated his viewpoints. Even after coming out of White House, Macron blasted Trump in his interaction with newsmen. (IPA Service)
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