After months of negotiations, the United States and Ukraine eventually reached a long-awaited contract regarding post reconstruction in Ukraine. At first glance, the details seem more favorable for Kyiv than many people had anticipated.
Exploiting Ukraine’s material success is at the heart of the “economic relationship deal.” Ukraine will have access to US tech and investment, and the US will eventually receive a share of the profits. If and when a harmony deal is reached with Russia, the rest may help fund the treatment of the war-torn country.
This agreement has many beneficial factors for Ukraine. The nation retains rights of its natural resources, unlike in earlier drawings. After the ten-year end of the agreement, all revenue will be invested in Ukraine.
Washington may also contribute in the form of new military assistance, but the decision will be up to the US president.
A big sticking point in the negotiations was the US president’s require that the deal include reimbursement for previous US aid to Ukraine, which he insisted amounted to US$ 350 billion. The number, according to many experts, is closer to$ 120 billion.
Prior to the signing of the agreement, Denys Shmyhal, the country’s prime minister, claimed that the agreement “would not involve assistance provided prior to its signing.” Additionally, according to the announcement from the Russian government, the new agreement “focuses on further, hardly past US martial assistance.”
However, when Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, addressed journalists, he referred to the agreement as” compensation” for” the funding and the weapons.”
It’s also to be seen whether Bessent’s speech represents political roll or whether there is still a disconnect between Kyiv and Washington regarding this pressing issue. The official wording has not been made public, and several details must be ironed out. Trump may be chaotic and prone to make abrupt shifts in direction.
However, signing this contract is only the most recent development in a larger campaign to end Ukraine’s conflict, which is likely to come with many more surprises. Trump’s apparent lack of patience with what he perceives as Russia’s refusal to participate in the harmony approach. Signing the agreement may have been intended as a omen to Moscow’s desire to take action to end the issue.
According to the new agreement, the US and Ukraine” reveal a long-term corporate position.” That’s a far cry from Trump’s language a few months ago when he referred to Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, as a “dictator” and blaming Kyiv for starting the conflict with Russia. However, it’s unlikely that Trump’s opinion of the issue will change until this agreement is reached.
Despite speculation about a proper position for the long term, the agreement doesn’t provide any specific security guarantees for Ukraine. However, the White House asserts and other observers anticipate that US investments in Ukraine will offer the US an inherent interest in the government’s protection. That could prevent Russia from launching an additional attack on Ukraine out of concern that the US will operate in its best interests.
But, when we transition from politics and protection to economics, a number of striking errors in this logic emerge. The issue is whether the material wealth at the heart of this contract can be successfully exploited, or whether it even exists.
A revolutionary breakthrough?
According to Mark Twain, an American comedian, a mine was once defined as” a hole in the ground owned by a phony.” Not every deposit may be extracted in a successful manner, and it is extremely challenging to assess the exact scale of underwater mineral deposits.
The experimental work in Ukraine has undoubtedly never been done. Perhaps the deposits’ supposed dimensions, which are based on outdated Soviet surveys that were conducted superficially, are unsure.
Many of the vitamins that allegedly reside beneath Ukraine’s area are so-called “rare planets,” which are essential to high-tech supply chains. They also require a sizable upfront investment that may ultimately be lost because they are time-consuming and cheap to exploit. Even in the most successful cases, it typically takes more than ten years to bring manufacturing onstream.
There are currently only a few rare-earth initiatives under growth outside of China, even in nations that are not currently ( and perhaps never will be ) conflict zones. The majority of Ukraine’s alleged deposits are located in areas that are vulnerable to Russian attacks, making investment difficult.
All of this results in the economic partnership agreement having a questionable long-term impact on the overall peace process. Its possible benefits are to hypothetical to significantly alter it over a long-term.
The agreement is unlikely to provide the US with little real economic support for its efforts to defend Ukraine, and it also is unlikely to provide Kyiv with additional military support.
The bargain doesn’t significantly alter for Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. It may serve as a sign that Trump isn’t having enough patience with Russia, but it doesn’t really transform the conflict’s fundamentals.
We doesn’t exclude the possibility that Trump, who is as unpredictably as he always, will produce a more significant commitment to Ukraine in the future, one that will alter the course of the conflict. However, this vitamins offer may seem like it is not at earliest.
Leiden University’s Andrew Gawthorpe is its director of history and foreign reports.
This content was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the text of the content.