US-Ukraine mineral deal terms worse than Germany's post-war reparations – The Telegraph

These terms significantly exceed those placed on Germany and Japan after World War II.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

"The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv," the article says.

According to the document, the US would receive 50% of revenues from resource extraction, as well as half the value of "all new licenses issued to third parties" for future resource monetization. These revenues would be "seized" in favor of the U.S.

“That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations.

It states that “for all future licences, the US will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals”. Washington will have sovereign immunity and acquire near total control over most of Ukraine’s commodity and resource economy.

The fund “shall have the exclusive right to establish the method, selection criteria, terms, and conditions” of all future licences and projects," the report states.

"President Zelensky himself proposed the idea of giving the US a direct stake in Ukraine’s rare earth elements and critical minerals on a visit to Trump Tower in September, hoping to smooth the way for continued arms deliveries.

He probably did not expect to be confronted with terms normally imposed on aggressor states defeated in war. They are worse than the financial penalties imposed on Germany and Japan after their defeat in 1945," the article says.

The terms of this deal significantly exceed the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

For comparison, the reparations imposed on the Weimar Republic amounted to 132 billion gold marks (approximately $269 billion in today’s terms) and were later reduced. In Ukraine's case, the demand stands at $500 billion.

In an interview with Fox News, Donald Trump stated that Ukraine had "essentially agreed" to hand over $500 billion.

“They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earths, in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things,” he said.

Trump warned that Ukraine would be "handed to Putin on a plate" if it refused these conditions.

"Ukraine cannot possibly meet his $500bn demand in any meaningful timeframe, leaving aside the larger matter of whether it is honourable to treat a victim nation in this fashion after it has held the battle line for the liberal democracies at enormous sacrifice for three years. Who really has a debt to whom, may one ask?"

Moreover, the proposed US agreement on access to Ukraine's natural resources provides for Washington's control over mineral and oil and gas resources, ports and other infrastructure.

Trump’s demand is an "iron-fisted coercion by a neo-imperial power against a weaker nation backed into a corner," the article concludes.