The Financial Times today has an important tidbit that provides yet more confirmation of why no one, particularly Russia, should try to enter into a deal with Trump. Even by the staggering standards of US/Collective West duplicity, Trump stands apart.
As the pink paper reports, the Administration still has not signed the minerals pact with Ukraine, even though that was a commitment agreed in the US-Ukraine talks in Riyadh on March 11. Recall Zelensky was in Riyadh and it could have easily been executed then. Some commenters volunteered it was odd that it wasn’t.
One of the real no-nos of negotiating is what is called “retrading a deal” as in trying to reopen settled terms. It is proof of bad faith. The only way to make it somewhat acceptable is to do all of 1. Grovel like crazy; 2. Explain why Shit Happened so that you need a change in the provisions; 3. Offer a concession in return for what amounts to a waiver in the original deal.
On top of that…in the “You can’t make this up” category, Trump’s team is retrading its own deal! Recall Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant first arrived in Kiev to muscle Zelensky into signing an agreement right there on the spot, an already brazen move, when the proposal was miles apart from what Zelensky had offered, Ukraine resources in return for security guarantees. Trump and Bessant were taking the minerals without giving anything in return. The terms were supposedly somewhat softened, but the scheme remained essentially, “The US takes and Ukraine gets squat” (well save perhaps Zelensky not being pressured to leave, though that was never made explicit. And most would contend that Zelensky remaining in his post is another negative for Ukraine).
So now Team Trump is worsening its own proposal…. for sport?
Now one can argue that Trump is merely jerking around Zelensky because he can. But even that as a behavior in geopolitics, as opposed to getting revenge on an ex-business partners or spouse, shows extreme emotional immaturity taking precedence over sensible and productive arrangements. Remember, this isn’t just a bad look. It’s a waste of time only for the sake of giving Trump some jollies. And is has the considerable downside of showing Russia yet more layers of Trump’s out-of-control grandiosity.
As for the substance, it’s even worse than general take above suggests, since if Trump were to get what he wants, it would at least complicate and potentially poison any settlement with Russia. We warned of that from the get-go when the minerals agreement idea became somewhat serious. Many (most?) of the valuable mineral deposits like in the areas of Ukraine that Russia claims and no way, no how is going to ceded. Putin swatted back initial Trump noises about the US position by saying of course the US could help develop them…as Russia has sometimes allowed oil majors to do in Russia.
Despite Ukraine officials saying they are willing to sign the deal, Zelensky has already rejected letting the US own or otherwise control its nuclear power plants. And surely Trump knows the biggest is the Zaporzhizhia facility, now in Russia hands and in territory Russia has annexed.
From the Russian perspective, this is not an asset that Ukraine could trade to the US even if it wanted to. But even the subhead of the Financial Times account says otherwise: “Trump administration wants to include nuclear plant under Russian control in broader economic agreement.:
Washington wants Kyiv to agree to detailed provisions about who owns and controls a joint investment fund, and to a broader scope, potentially covering US ownership of other economic assets such as Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, two Ukrainian officials said.
This would amount to a reopening of the yet unsigned minerals deal hatched days before presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy fell out in public at the White House.
Trump and Zelenskyy on a call this week “discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants”, according to an account of the call from secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
“[President Trump] said that the United States could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” the summary added, with US ownership offering “the best protection” for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Zelenskyy told the FT during an online briefing with reporters on Wednesday that he had discussed with Trump just one nuclear facility: the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest….
However, the deal — which Kyiv regarded as satisfactory — remains unsigned as both sides navigate complex negotiations involving broader economic and security matters, said Ukrainian and US officials.
“We are ready to sign it,” said a senior Ukrainian official close to Zelenskyy. “It will be strange to ignore it.”Two senior Ukrainian officials involved in negotiations with the US over Ukraine’s mineral resources said the Trump administration had not yet presented Kyiv with new terms.
“But I realise that . . . they’re working on a bigger agreement,” said one of the officials, who, like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.
Remember nothing has been concluded yet, so this could be more reflexive Trump behavior of trying to create more options whether they have value or not.
But unless Trump is trying to pre-position another excuse for the Ukraine negotiations failing, this looks like yet another instance of Trump’s mode of operation: “All tactics and no strategy is the noise before the defeat.”
An unfortunate typo:
“[…] shows extreme emotional maturity taking precedence over sensible and productive arrangements.”
You definitely mean immaturity there.
This being said, after all those negotiation moves, counter-moves, retreats, and alterations, I have no longer any satisfactory idea of what Trump wants to achieve. Is he throwing everything at the wall to see if anything sticks?
Ooops, fixing! A one-pass draft before I had to run out.
Run out of what?
Run out of the door, probaly.
A Sputnik article I was reading was suggesting that there might be method in his madness. That if Trump could get the Ukrainians to hand over control of their energy infrastructure to him, then that would mean that the US would have control of energy going into the EU from the Ukraine. Remember too that there was a suggestion that the last remaining NS2 pipeline be opened up again – but controlled by US investors. And further back how Biden blew up the NS2 pipelines so that the EU would be dependent on the US for gas supplies.You put these pieces together and you see a long-term US policy to have the US be in a position to throttle the EU’s energy supplies so that it could never be in a position to economically compete with the US.
That makes sense. Despite the inconsistent, incompetent, and ham-fisted actions of the DT2 regime, I see no substantive difference with the previous regime. The approach of the JB regime clearly did not work, so now the new set of kakistocrat-cronies apparently think that the Russians have short memories and are stupider than they are. The US can now play the phony “good cop” and the EU/UK “bad cop”, but the Russians aint buyin it.
Even RT, Sputnik etc. try to sugar-coat the incompetence of the DT2 crew and engage in wishful speculation.
A perfect summary, JonnyJames. Now we have a “new set of Kleptocrats” with ridiculous whims that no Russian official would agree to.
No country in its right mind would agree to this preposterous plan.
The same model approach could be seen if Russia decided to take over Canada’s many riches in minerals, and oil. Imagine the reaction by the US “kleptocrats.”
How many times does The World’s nations have to witness “The Monroe Doctrine” by the US and it’s predatory nature.
Remember Oscar Wilde’s observations in traveling to parts of the US: “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without Civilization in between.”
Things haven’t changed much since the 1860s in the US. Have they?
Even if the US controls the gas Russia is still supplying it. Do you think Russia would give the US the same low price as they gave the Germans? And, if I were Russia I would require payment in advance for the gas.
Russia would demand payment first of gas that was supplied but never paid for. I think a big chunk of that frozen $300 billion are payments for gas supplied. Would you loan money to a person that never repaid back a previous loan?
Canada has the resources to supply the EU. Also, already has a free trade agreement with EU.
Of course, only if Trump doesn’t send in the US military for annexation as he has frequently repeated.
Yeah, let’s waste even more fossil fuel on transporting fossil fuel, it’s not like we’re going to run out soon. /sarc
This really is the stupidest timeline.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thehonestsorcerer/p/2025-a-civilizational-tipping-point
I think this is relevant
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trumps-no-good-very-bad-week/
“It’s one week; it could just be a blip. A worried mind, though, might see the variety of ills that could befall the administration’s program. If the American people had wanted more reckless, expensive, and warlike foreign policy, they could have voted for the Democrats; fighting Iran on behalf of the Israelis or single-handedly clearing the Red Sea on behalf of the Europeans, Saudis, and Chinese seem to be orthogonal to this administration’s stated purposes. Nor has the rollout of tariffs been entirely happy. While the country has seen a bipartisan movement toward greater trade protectionism and industrial policy, the real and perceived caprices of the tariff implementation—and, more importantly, the failure of the administration to articulate a single, coherent message about what the tariffs are actually supposed to do—have burned much of this natural goodwill. Would the markets still be spiraling if punitive tariffs and protective tariffs had been clearly delineated, and the latter introduced on a longer, more predictable timescale? I somehow doubt it. While DOGE’s much-trumpeted reorganization of the executive has a broad appeal for now, is mere war on the administrative state without substantive policy goals in mind a political winner outside the rarefied parlors of the Federalist Society? Unclear; I would bet that people don’t care that much about government efficiency unless the government is visibly pursuing things they want done. Nor is wading into campus culture war an obvious winner.”
Which is to say that–contra much comment that Trump is a deliberate fraud, doesn’t really want peace etc–it may be more true that Trump is sincere in his ambitions (if only to the greater glory of Trump) but his petty personality is utterly incapable of realizing them. He can’t help himself from boasting and calling people names or holding grudges over unimportant grievances that he may have made up in his own mind. He’s still the dog that caught the car and this time it’s a much bigger car.
So we can only hope that those around him including the many foreign leaders he talks to guide him to a saner course on foreign policy. Meanwhile domestically perhaps a crashing economy will pull in the reins. To be sure Trump’s bad cop routine may be all an act, but it’s starting to look like it isn’t.
Trump is also hurting JD Vance by association.
Vance. populist Big Tech minion, seems in some ways as mysterious as Trump. At least he’s not old.
I think an interesting question in all this would be why Trump is in such a big hurry to strike a deal. Could it have to do with that two month deadline with which Trump threatened Iran? An even more cynical take would be that Trump only has four years to make Greater Israel a fait accompli and for Jared to have his new Riviera up and running. It has been a cynical week.
‘ While DOGE’s much-trumpeted reorganization of the executive has a broad appeal for now,…’
Huh???
Certainly, doesn’t seem to be the sentiment on this blog.
The American Conservative has the rosiest of rose colored glasses when it comes to Trump and they appear to love Vance even more. Of course they also adored Matt Gaetz…
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/war-on-iran-would-be-no-cakewalk/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-el-salvador-deportations-pros-and-cons/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-shouldnt-follow-netanyahus-lead/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trumps-yemen-strikes-could-ruin-his-legacy/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-should-drop-plans-for-travel-ban/
You were saying? Of course Trump is supposedly from the same paleoconservative school as AC, once led by Pat Buchannan. Buchannan was a critic of the Bush FP adventurists and war in general although when he worked for Nixon he did like Vietnam since versus the commies.
But it looks like what Russo calls Trump’s very bad week may be losing his philosophical base since, as my link says, nobody voted for war with Iran.
As for DOGE, early polls showed the public in favor–around 60 percent–of cutting government spending. I haven’t checked them lately.
The larger point is what Yves says–event are seeming increasingly chaotic. All tactics and no strategy.
It all depends on how you ask.
If you ask about “eliminating fraud and waste in government expenditures” you get 76% support (or you did in february).
If you ask about individual agencies and wheter they should be expanded, kept the same, reduced or eliminated, all the agencies in the questionaire has more votes for expanded or kept the same then for reduced or eliminated. Including DOGE itself. Though with 29% that wants to eliminate DOGE, it is ahead of the pack on “eliminate”.
I may be wrong, but I’ve yet to see Zelenskyy admit that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is in Russian hands, although I’ve not seen an article accusing Russia of bombing the plant for sometime. So maybe this is about consistent messaging.
You can’t trade what you don’t have. Zelensky may say that, and he probably needs to, but Russia controls the plant and it’s in territory Russia deems to be Russian. So what is Trump going to do? Argue with Russia and poison the deal, as Russia takes more of Ukraine and leaves Ukraine and therefore the US with even less? And that charitably assumes things don’t go so sour that Russia is forced to say the hell with the US (or maneuvers things so the US abandons the negotiations first) and install a new government that among other things repudiates everything signed by Zelensky after his term of office expired? That would be completely consistent with the Russian position.
The point is that this minerals deal is of little actual value. Zelensky can only trade in government owned, not privately held minerals; all those maps fail to make that distinction. Pretty much anything any good is in the hands of an oligarch. All this dominance display is simply going to make a the high odd of the negotiations failing even higher.
Seems Putin just told a group of Russian business people not to expect a breakthrough in the immediate future. So the Russians have the measure of the mercurial Trump.
Of course the US owning the power plants or any other part of Ukraine is a terrible idea. That was Biden’s plan for what would follow his fantasized defeat of Putin. What we really need is to get shed of Ukraine altogether. It doesn’t help if Trump merely replaces the deep state with his own deep state.
I think the FT is maybe getting confused here.
“Deal” is not a term in international negotiations, and in this context it could mean almost anything. A proper minerals agreement along the lines that have been talked about would be very complex and take months to negotiate, and whatever was presented to the Ukrainians in the past by Bessant can only have been an outline. These sorts of agreements are not negotiated by Presidents, who only come in at the very last stage, so whatever happened on 11 March it wasn’t that. What may have happened is that the two agreed some kind of overall shape of a “deal” and that somebody on one side produced a summary of the idea that both sides were happy with. The Ukrainians might have wanted to put it out as a signed statement of intent of some kind. The detailed negotiations would then have followed.
I’m guessing, but Trump is known for being impetuous, and I suspect this amounts to “hey, why don’t we add this as well while we’re at it?” which sort of behaviour is generally considered bad manners and shows signs of inadequate preparation, but isn’t necessarily duplicitous.
There’s also the wider point, often forgotten, that by convention no government can bind its successor, and most treaties (if that’s what this is) have a clause allowing parties to withdraw. So not only (as you say) are the Ukrainians being asked for something they can’t deliver, but any future government in Kiev could walk away from the “deal” whatever that turns out to be in the end.
It seems like the serious tone of the article is based on believing that the minerals are Zelensky’s to offer, both in the sense of them not being held by Russia, and in the sense of them actually existing. It is near certain that Russia will not consider Zelensky’s signature to represent legitimate state authority, and it sounds like he has promised much of this hypothetical wealth to Starmer already. Trump not taking the whole thing seriously does not seem that grave a sin.
I’ve also noticed that most media use the word ‘deal’ for just about any transaction. Maybe time to use a dictionary and a thesaurus. What’s the deal?
Impetuous is being kind. The DT team was woefully unprepared, and they don’t do their homework. The ignorance and incompetence shows through very quickly.
I always thought that his whole presidential endeavour was for the sake of giving Trump some jollies, and some revenge (which can be included in jollies). No joke.
I would add “looting”.
What billionaire wants these.power generating plants?
First thing to remember is this administration about privatization. So not a damn thing is for the “government of the.people”.
Trump should bring Witkoff to a meeting with Z and the Russians, and offer to give Russia the Oblasts nuclear plants and minerals for a fee/commission. Witcoff knows real estate transactions he can work out the details. They should ask Russia how many and which Oblasts they want. This might be a more transparent transaction than what the Bidens&Co were doing with Ukraine. Maybe Witcoff could convince Russia to include an exclusive license for Trump to develop a Hotel chain for the rich and a playground for them along the lines of Dolly Parton’s DollyWood. Would TrumpWood work or might Dolly sue? Trump could promote it at the next G20 or 8 meeting and sell advance tickets. Also make a speech at United Nation’s promoting it.
When was Zelensky last in Kiev? he was in Helsinki and Oslo this past week and is supposedly due in London again soon for a big European allies meeting. He’s survived the Ides of March at least. In the meantime in Ukraine, the Ukrainians blew up a gas pipeline under their own control, and one of the senior figures there has been talking about blowing up all the nuclear power stations still under Ukr control in a kind of Cagneyesque White Heat grand finale, ‘Made it Ma, Top of the world!
In which case, what can be traded becomes moot.
This is originally Counterpunch from 2 weeks ago
The Ukraine War is About Money
by Daniel Axelrod, nuclear scientist, and Prof. emer. (apparently no affiliation with spin doctor David Axelrod to my knowledge)
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/03/daniel-axelrod-the-ukraine-war-is-about-money/
“(…)But still, why is there a difference in Ukraine policy between Trump and Biden, if they are both pro-corporate puppets? This is because western corporate networks that essentially buy government policy are not monolithic; different networks have some overlapping interests but also some very divergent ones. One split appears to be whether the circle of Russian oligarchs are included vs. excluded in the corporate array of holdings. Another split follows along the global (“globalist”) vs. national (“America first”) investments divide. The different networks then push different politicians and governmental policies according to which policies will directly benefit themselves at the expense of the others. This clash of interests is usually hidden, played out only in secret meetings and corporate boardrooms and lobbyist bribery. But these days, some of the clashes have broken out into the public. For example, in the case of Biden, some of his wealthy backers and family members allegedly were deeply invested in Ukraine government-connected energy exploration holding corporations (for example, Burisma). Trump allegedly appears to have owed a debt to the Russian oligarch networks which launder money through his real estate towers and which have bailed him out of bankruptcy when his New Jersey casinos failed.(…)”
Axelrod is not a specialist on this. He wrote a good book about nuclear war.
Which is why the text is rather superficial.
But is there anything real to Trump being used for laundering involving Russian “oligarchs” (“oil-garchs”)? I remember having read of a Saudi connection.
Sorry if the answer to this is already well-known around NC.
“But is there anything real to Trump being used for laundering involving Russian “oligarchs” (“oil-garchs”)? I remember having read of a Saudi connection. ”
I automatically started thinking about the choice of Saudi Arabia as the place to hold negotiations.
So many reasons, so little time to figure out all of them.
I take the point but a few nitpicks: Even he uses the word “oligarchs” to describe Russians. The world’s richest oligarchs are mostly from the US, but oligarch is seldom, if ever used for them in the Anglo media. Only those evil Russkies can be oligarchs apparently
The “global” vs. America first is, IMO, is exaggerated, IMO. Even the so-called “America First” crowd is all in favor of US military adventures, meddling, sanctions, threatening, regime change, Israel First etc. They don’t give a fk about “America”, only their own interests, It’s just an empty PR slogan.
(“globalist” is a trendy, meaningless word IMO and has no place in the study of IR, IPE or Geopolitics)
It is just a different flavor, or style of imperialism, if you will. I would argue that the long-term foreign policy of the US changes very little. The endgame appears to be the confrontation with China.
I too took issue with “oligarchs”. And as I tried to point out the text is not as good as I had hoped. natyliesbaldwin.com is a very good source so I went with it eventually.
However I do wonder if there are alignments and how those look like between Russian and Western elites. The fact that e.g. the wife of the Moscow major was exempt from sanctions and many more such examples hint at a certain informal nature of business and conduct on that level.
In the vein of Hillary Clinton´s admission: “At least now Chelsea and Ivanka can go out again” after she had lost against Trump.
I think it’s more than just “out of control grandiosity”.
The whole thing is like a vengeful Mafia Don on acid or the famous episode of The Twilight Zone where a little boy has god-like powers and manipulates everyone around him to obey his whims lest they be maimed or banished to limbo.
So yesterday the chairman of the august Paul Weiss firm goes to the Oval Office and pays off a $40 million bribe, to keep the firm from being destroyed by the Orange Man:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/paul-weiss-trump.html
We’re beyond Norms Fairy territory. IMHO, this will not end well.
I sometimes joke that I am still waiting for Rod Serling to appear out of nowhere and tell us “You have entered the Twilight Zone”
Well, didn’t Trump base his Presidential campaign on ” I am your retribution” ? Meaning . . . his own retribution which his worshippers identified as their own retribution because they identify themselves as being subordinate parts of the Trump Super-Organism.
Just spitballing here, but how different might things be if VP J.D. ascends to the Big Chair well before the next election? How that happens is a topic for some lively discussion to be sure (“dog that caught the even bigger car” kinda rings my chimes ;^) but could/would Vance successfully grab the reins and “turn this sumbitch around”? (h/t Willie Nelson and the immortal Slim Pickens in the film Honeysuckle Rose)
Vance is more ideological and his ideology is “Dark Enlightemnent”.
https://information-warfare.com/the-rise-of-dark-enlightenment-aa03ee8f4c2d
So he wouldn’t turn this sumbitch “around”. He would steer this “sumbitch” in a new direction.
Remember, it was Vance rather than Trump who first designated Universities as “the enemy”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FR65Cifnhw
Thanks for this- I confess to being pretty clueless about his priors and the first 45 seconds of that YouTube clip wised me up good. Still digesting lunch ( PDT here on the left coast) so mebbe I’ll watch the rest later so I don’t risk ‘hurling’. Your other link calls to mind a song from a few years back –
“A. Enlightenment
B. Endarkenment
(Hint: there is no C.)”
I guess someone else should grab the wheel of this sumbitch and it better not be DT’s pet muppet ‘Elmo’!
“…extreme emotional immaturity taking precedence over sensible and productive arrangements. Remember, this isn’t just a bad look. It’s a waste of time only for the sake of giving Trump some jollies. And is has the considerable downside of showing Russia yet more layers of Trump’s out-of-control grandiosity…”
Great point, some say that the DT shows signs of cognitive decline. It’s not as obvious as JB’s – yet, but his behavior may be even weirder than years past. Extreme emotional immaturity yes, but now it looks like possible dementia is slowly advancing. Just an observation.
Vance is patiently and humbly waiting for Trump to get Article 25’d so Vance can become President.
I am actually not surprised that they are re-trading their own deal. It is not too dissimilar to complaining about the Canada-Mexico tariff regime after having negotiated USMCA with great fanfare in 2018.
Good analogy, but with one difference: Ukraine and its allies are also double dealing in bad faith.
The inconsistent bravado and boasts coming out of Zelenski provide proof as to the kind of people arw on the other side. As bad as it would be in normal diplomacy, I’ll confess to having an odd sense of satisfaction at Z and his pals getting a taste of bad and duplicitous diplomacy.
Putin talks of a ‘secuity framework’. Trump has his eyes on property and asset acquisition for the US. Now, a resort in Odessa to match the future one in Gaza! The US, NATO, & Ukraine have given themselves and Russia a potential 100 year war that will end when one or the other side has exhausted itself. Russia will probably not accept a ‘stalemate’ and will, maybe reluctantly, plow along ttill it reaches a resolution. It is tempting to liken Trump to a hyper active and impulsive child (ADHD?) in which case Russia’s best strategy would be to let him run around in circles, chasing butterflies, until depleted of energy.
What surprises me is the lack of any plans for “the most northern golf course resort” in Greenland.”
IMHO, more attractive than over-the-graves plans for Gaza…
What’s more attractive, is up to Kushner to decide.
With respect to the Ukrainian nuclear facilities, I see that pro-Russian Telegram channels (example: https://t.me/Slavyangrad/122561, among others) are posting a video of an interview of Oleksii Arestovich, Zelenskii’s former spin doctor, in which he claims that the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, the infamous Kirill Budanov, has proposed, in the event of Kiev’s certain defeat, the blowing up of all nuclear reactors on Ukrainian territory. He opines that the sudden interest of the U.S. in these facilities is prompted by knowledge of this insane scheme:
“They [the US] perceive us as a monkey with a grenade. And they just want to take control of dangerous toys. They know about our plans to blow up all the nuclear power plants if Ukraine loses. Budanov was running around with this about a year and a half ago. Like, we’ll blow everything up, all the Russian ones we can reach, all ours, so that no one gets it. He brought this seriously to the office, proposed on the principle of “we’ll die, but we’ll take everyone with us,” Arestovich said.
Food for thought, no?
Specifically insofar as the nuclear power plants:
So there was a NY Times story on Thursday, March 20 – “Trump Wants to Take Over Ukraine’s Nuclear Plants. What Would That Mean?”, by Constant Meheut. [Whose name at least one Russian news website transliterated as “Constan Mee”, which I find vaguely amusing.]
The thrust of the story isn’t Trump, but rather the interests of Westinghouse, which is the main US corp involved in building and operating nukes. Westinghouse, it seems, has been licking its chops viz. Ukraine for quite a while, because not only is there a ton of money involved in owning and operating the existing nukes, but also there is the matter of rebuilding the destroyed energy infrastructure, which would be an excellent opportunity to sell Westinghouse’s new 300 MW modular reactor model. This all assumes that Ukraine remains in the US orbit, by the way, because a pro-Russian Ukraine would 143% go with Rosatom.
Parenthetically, before the war Westinghouse had already been converting Ukraine’s Soviet-era plants to use Westinghouse’s fuel elements – and when the Russians had taken over the Zaporozh’e nuclear station, one of the first things they said they would look into doing is switching back to Soviet slash modern Russian technology, including for safety reasons. But the point is, you can potentially make a lot more money from owning the actual facility than from fuel and servicing contracts. Not to mention new construction, and Westinghouse is fairly sore about having to compete with the Russians or whomever in the international arena.
Anyhow, the article then goes on to explain, that Ukraine’s constitution places its nukes in the hands of the state agency. So first, the constitution would need to be amended, then a privatization process carried out, and only then would Westinghouse get its hands on not just the existing plants, but any newbuilds after the war. Obviously, the Ukrainians are balking at this, because, first and foremost, money – more than a few Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs, hello Yulia Timoshenko, got rich off diverting some of the cash from the state energy monopolies.
So the way I figure this whole thing is – Westinghouse heard about the minerals deal, figured it would be their best shot at strongarming the Ukrainians into handing over their nukes, and gallopped to the White House to pitch Trump on the idea. As I recall, quite vaguely, from the 1990s, Trump is no stranger to trying to retrade a deal on a constant basis, such as offering to pay less than the contracted amount for construction already completed. Certainly by the time “The Apprentice” came along, he’d had a rep as not a guy to make a deal with in any way other than the point-gun-at-head-grind-face-into-wall classic. So to him, retrading with the Ukrainians, who are supposed to be US puppets in the first place, is beyond natural, it would be unnatural for him not to so do. Especially if Westinghouse pitched their idea in sufficiently rosy and flattering terms.
None of which negates the assertions that, from Moscow perspective, this looks coco-bananas, or the simple fact that the Zaporozh’e plant physically will not be a part of any deal, period, full stop. Not to mention the all-tactics-no-strategy line. I suppose I just thought I’d give a little more context, as well as underscore that, to some extent, it isn’t so much Trump as all the moneyed guys who can get to Trump, directly or indirectly (hello, JD Vance, a.k.a. Thiel’s platonic rentboy).
This is interesting
https://www.rt.com/russia/614631-ukraine-plans-blow-nuclear-plants/
Of course if the Ukrainians really have a plan to destroy the plants (out of spite) then an obvious candidate to protect them would be not America but Russia. The latest from Trump seems to misunderstand the whole “sphere of influence” concept.
Perhaps in the spirit of a Trumpian deal the Russians should trade the plants for a full Russian presence in Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and other countries threatened by US spite. Call it mutually assured spite. “Trust”–that old fashioned concept–seems to be on very shaky ground indeed given the most recent Trump moves.
I haven’t read every article about blowing up the power plants.
But do they mean Chernobyl like blowing up and destroying hundreds if not thousands of sq miles or 3 mile island which destroyed the insides but not the outside?
Either way to me this is a whole new level of insanity
They’ve already sent minor drone attacks and some shelling toward two of them. I don’t believe the old Soviet plants have containment structures but still might not be very easy to “blow up.” Allegedly one goal of the Kursk incursion was to capture that plant.
There are none of the RBMK ( Chernobyl) are active in Ukraine.
All the active ones have normal containment systems
Carlson and Witkoff–could be worth a look.
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-steve-witkoff
I listened to the entire conversation and I’ll say I’m pretty impressed.
I’m not in agreement with much of what Witkoff has to say, but I can’t argue with how he’s approaching the situation in both Eastern Europe and the MIddle East and I can even say that I understand why he’s taking the perspective he does given his goals, especially after the way he articulated his views on things. Plus, he did a remarkable job sounding suitably diplomatic, even towards most people whom I don’t think he’s terribly fond of–except Zelensky (and only at times even there.)
I don’t think it’s too much an exaggeration to say that he is the best diplomatic representative that US has had in quite a long time.
Larry Johnson disagrees, and points out Witkoff’s considerable ignorance about basic issues: https://sonar21.com/tucker-carlsons-interview-with-steve-witkoff-reveals-surprising-ignorance/
Oh, I don’t mean that Witkoff necessarily has anything like a mastery of the facts or even that he will be successful at things. (and, per user1234 below, the low is pretty low). However, there is one key difference from the approach that US “diplomats” took for decades in Witkoff’s basic approach.
The usual claptrap that passed for “diplomacy” among American diplomats has been:
1. We’ll list a bunch of things we demand from our interlocutors and engage in a lot of sophistry (if you are somewhat clever) and yelling (usually) to justify them on moral grounds.
2. We’ll engage in threats, blackmail, dirty tricks, limited “peaceful” wars, and outright full scale aggression and mass murder for peace and call it diplomacy.
Witkoff (and the Trump gang generally) seem to follow this approach.
1. We want X. We know who the power players are. We know they want Y which is not incompatible with X.
2. We can make deals with the power players where we get X and they get Y, and crush the little people who don’t matter underfoot.
Or, in other words, what Witkoff described is the basic great power power politics.
Many people have issues with the “usual” approach because we canj’t stand the utter immorality. From this perspective, the Trumpy approach is just as evil–and possibly, even more so. We might, for example, believe that the former’s “morality” is right, even if the approach is appalling. What Witkoff described to Carlson is, quite honestly, completely amoral or even immoral by premise: we will make deals with the powerful people and crush the little poeple who don’t matter along the way if they are a hindrance to our deals. I don’t think Witkoff’s factual mistakes are necessarily “mistakes”: he may or may not know the facts, but that’s not the important part. In case of Ukraine, he knows that there are only two powerful people in the room: US and Russia. We might disdain Z because he’s a lying and criminal piece of s**t and the European leaders because they are warmongering buffoons. Witkoff disdains them because they are weak yet make too much annoying noise (Europeans at least have something in their hands so, when they learn their place, we might deal with them. Z is a beggar who has nothing). We are moved to a large degree by the utter immorality of the Israeli policy and that their adversaries have the moral high ground. To Witkoff and Trump, morality does not matter: Palestinians, Lebanese, etc. are irrelevant and annoying because, .like Ukrainians, they are weak and yet make too much noise. Isralis and Iranians, like the Europeans, are trying to overplay their hands, as far as Witkoff and Trump are concerned, so they need to be put in their place, but as long as they know their cards, so to speak, they can be dealt with according to what they bring to the table. (So we saw Witkoff giving Netanyahu the beatdown when the latter tried to overplay his hands too blatantly like he kept doing with Blinken–but alas, Netanyahu is perfectly able to adapt to playing a supplicant quickly, too.)
One important part of the Witkoff/Trump approach, I think, is that they are willing to adjust if they recognize that the cards player hold change. I don’t worry as much about their assessment about the relative strengths of the players as Johnson does since they have shown this willigness to reevaluate their situation without being wedded to moralizing faith. This is, after all, what brought about the Abraham Accords during Trump I–a fundamentally immoral pact, really a sort of modern day Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, but, like the MR Pact, a stroke of diplomatic genius nevertheless. One thing we will not see from these guys is that they will not commit to a 100 year pact to with a rotting corpse under color, or worse, delusion of morality. Unfortunately, this does mean that Palestinians and a lot of Lebanese are screwed, though.
I’d wager that at least some of the wrong information spouted by Witkoff in the Carlson interview are at least semi-intentional (not knowing hte regions of Novorossiya does seem like a genuine error, though). Trump and his team engage in echolocation: they’ll throw out a lot of stuff, much of it utterly false, to gauge the other players by how they respond. He knows that people around the world watch Carlson more than most other outlets.
Morality is only for public consumption, this is hard-ball international politics. One should focus on power and interests, there is no “morality” in foreign policy. The PR BS is for domestic public consumption.
Diplomatic genius? Sorry you lost me there. This seems like more apology and wishful speculation. There is no ceasefire, the sanctions continue
One big problem is that the DT2 crew don’t know what cards the Russians hold, and don’t know what cards they hold, due to ignorance and hubris.
I don’t call MR Pact an act of diplomatic genius because I’m making excuses for the Nazis, y’know.
The Trump gang almost made the Abraham Accords work the first time around because they understood the cynical balance of power, basically that most Arab powers don’t really care about the Palestinians beyond what they are forced to by public opinion. Trump has issues with Netanyahu etc because they inflame Arab public opinion that makes it difficult for Arab regimes to make Abraham Accords work.
So the analogy between Trumpian diplomacy and MR Pact (and earlier, Nazi-Polish Pact of 1934), I think, are closer than one might think–a pact between great powers to crush mutually annoying little people underfoot, with a lot of details left out because nobody really knows what the future holds.
That all sounds great but: Sorry, I just don’t see any evidence to support such optimistic speculation. I only see ignorance, hubris, and incompetence. Perhaps I have unrealistic expectations, and that the full-blown kleptocratic kakistocracy is all we can expect.
To admit that is depressing and disturbing. To remain optimistic and not fall into depression, some folks need to engage in wishful thinking. Whatever works, but I can’t ignore the hard reality
The hard reality that I’m noticing is that Trump and his interlocutors are building their agreement on the crushed backbones of the “little people” that have no cards to play. I’d hardly call that “optimstic,” except in the sense that Trump is not letting fraudsters with little or no cards to play manipulate US foreign policy, whether they are Zelenski or Netanyahu. I find a bit of solace in this in that I consider the moralizing defenders of these fraudsters disgusting, but the proposition that might has the right to crush the right that Trump espouses should disturb people (although I’ll confess to being less bothered by it since I think the self-claimed “right” is, 99% of the time, the last refuge of the scoundrels and I suppsoe that shows.)
Trump is not letting fraudsters manipulate US foreign policy?
If that makes you feel better, that’s fine. Sounds like you got it backwards. They bombed Yemen again, threatening Iran…still shipping arms to Israel to commit genocide, sanctions still in place, Zelensky still there, Russians still presented with unworkable conditions etc….nothing has changed except the blah blah blah and cheap PR stunts.
We shall see. From their perspective, Yemen is trying to exert influence both beyond their scope and station: not only do they think Yemenis hold few cards, having a small power close off a major shipping lane just to make a political point goes significantly beyond just the Middle East. I would say that this makes them the most important target to be put in their place from the power politics angle–even more than Iran, I suspect.
We shall see how the dealings with Israel play out. I think the relationship has changed: with the Sullivan administration, Netanyahu could demand whatever he wanted. With Trump, he has to ask. But Israel still has a lot of political assets in play and the US power politics player has to keep that in mind. I do expect that the military gear come with more strings, or at least, boundaries, attached than before.
Like I was saying above, these are fundamentally amoral people, who care mainly about power relationship, not about morality. Israel gets bombs because they can cut a deal for them in which they deliver some service. I expect that they can get a deal with Iran because the latter don’t have all that much interest in the Levant (they are not wrong, esp with the Syria situation now), provided that they can come to some terms, with some threats and more taking place as “nothing personal, just business” along the way.
“The best diplomatic representative that US has had in quite a long time” sounds like something that should enter the low-bar competition.
Carlson? I consider him a media celebrity and a sycophant, complete with makeup, and perfect coiffure. Not exactly a source for unbiased information, but to be fair, I don’t pay attention to him.
Apologies for being bit off topic but I think this commentary by the excellent Colonel Daniel Davis in his youtube channel DeepDive provides as good an overview of what is happening in regards to the state of the war and related negotiations as you’ll get anywere else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uqlguROeoQ
*Sigh* Davis is not bad but he is far from the best. He regularly treats pro-US/Ukraine talking points as fact. We don’t link to him as a result.
This appears like a superficial treatment of the issue, and borders on apology for the DT2 regime. The incompetence, and ignorance of basic issues by Rubio, Witkoff, DT, Hegseth, et al. is not surprising, but disturbing all the same.
Col. Davis may be accused of keeping the political side of things simplified and I think he steers clear of making pronouncements on Donald Trump’s government as a result and presents his opinion from a militarily “realist” point of view. Clearly he is trying to reach the widest possible audience. In the past he has interviewed Professor Mearsheimer and seems very much on the same page. My point is that as an overview, he is very useful. He seems to have two major motivations – concern that the conflicts in Ukraine (and the Middle East) could easily spin out of control into much wider conflicts (and he has emphasized the limits of US power to this end), and he is also clearly driven by humanitarian concerns for the people affected by the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Plus, if the reports are right, he was in the running for a high position in the admin, so I cab’t fault him for navigating carefully. In the end, a lot of commentators (and certainly, every policymaker) are playing coalition game in which they are not trying to offend certain people and butter up the others and I don’t think I can blame them.
As someone who’s invested in mining companies for over 15 years I would say these much vaunted mineral deposits are a McGuffin to provide cover for a worthless withdrawal. Without any assays, diamond core drilling or even geologists’ assessment, they’re worth nothing. It takes $Billions in capital expenditure to even establish a workable deposit and decades to break even. There’s a reason Buffet doesn’t invest in miners. The arable land is probably worth more tbh.
It’s entire reasonable to interpret events so far as Trump flailing around. But I would like to submit a second interpretation.
What does the USA want? Geopolitical and economic space to pursue competition with China. What therefore does it want with Europe? Economically, loyal customers, not competitors, paying the highest prices. Politically, obedient vassals. And what does Russia want from Europe? Loyal customers paying the highest prices. And a new security architecture.
Neither the EU nor the Ukraine wants these things (well, the EU might because enough Eurocrats have been bought off but the Ukraine has *ideology*) but both of them are not at the table! The “deal” is going to keep changing though as the US and Russian talks progress because only the USA can deliver the Ukraine and EU trussed up like chickens.
The concept of the deal is very simple, the USA wants to control the EU economically and politically by controlling its energy.
First and foremost, it wants to be cut into the Russia supply via Ukraine and I think Russia is OK with this because Russia will raise its wholesale price and make more money and the US will add its vig on top and the result will be that the EU will pay the highest prices in the world; US LNG will remain competitive against Russian gas in the EU market and Russia’s industrial sector will continue to enjoy excellent domestic terms of trade. Talk about coveting the domestic mineral wealth of the Ukraine is a smokescreen for goal – which is covered in the deal under mineral rights re pipelines etc. – and simultaneously enables Trump to create the impression of a long-term US “trip-wire” commitment to the Ukraine and the fantasy that the Ukrainiann adventure might pay for itself.
Second, the USA will to use its control of direct LNG supplies and indirect Russian gas and oil supplies to dictate EU energy policy, specifically on how the EU satisfies the rest of its energy demand with supplies from the Middle East (the EU is a major energy importer from MENA),
Third – and this is why the “deal” is being retraded – Russia has presumably signalled to the USA that the Ukrainian regime’s nuclear proliferation risk is unacceptable (see all the Ukrainian threats of developing a bomb, of using waste in dirty bombs, even of deliberately causing containment breaches of the nuclear plants in Kiev’s control). Russia has told the USA to bring Kiev heel and that it won’t object to the USA having a role in the Ukrainan power sector so Trump is now seeking to insert the USA into Ukrainian nuclear industry. I also wonder whether Trump’s renewed sabre-rattingling on Iran’s nuclear potential is because Russia has dangled a quid pro quo in return, that it will press Iran to keep its NPT pledges if Kiev is brought to heel.
In return for all this, Russia wants territory back from the Ukraine, US neutrality in Europe (which frees the USA to worry about the Pacific) and an end to sanctions – or at least the granting of specific waivers on trade in energy and energy industry goods with the West and an end to secondary sanctions by the West in the rest of the world.
Sorry but having DOGE wreck the US economy and what is left of US leadership in science and medicine is not a strategy to shore up the US versus China. It’s the reverse. This again is “All tactics and no strategy is the noise before the defeat.”
As for Putin’s offer, it bears no resemblance to what the US is trying to achieve here. And the US will not be able to wrest the Zaporzhizhia power plant from Russia. It’s a deal breaker. No sane country would allow a foreign state to participate in the operation of a nuclear power plant.
I think Russia and the USA will find an agreement on many things. At this point, Trump is negotiating for maximum leverage over Europe and the Ukraine, not Russia. He knows he holds very few cards with Russia (sanctions) compared with the Ukraine (prop up puppet South Vietnam state and web of corruption) and Europe (threaten to leave NATO, tariff economies, squeeze energy trade etc).
On Zaporozhia, Russia will continue to run the plant but Ukraine will “own” it, with USA co-owning it of course. Western Ukrainian nuclear plants will merely find themselves sold to US-dominated operators.
As for China, the USA should be careful what it wishes for, with regard to “freedom” to confront China, given your exposés show very clearly how DOGE is reckless as to whether it is damaging key US systems.
The idea of Ukraine owning a nuclear power plant in Russia, even on paper, sounds ridiculous. Ukraine will “own nothing and be happy” (as the infamous phrase says).
Russia and the USA could find an agreement on many things, and all of those agreements will be broken by the USA at first opportune moment, as everyone ought to know by now. At this point, Trump is negotiating for a time-out that The Empire of Lies needs to recuperate and reorganize, and put some brakes on its decline. There is an old Slavic saying, that roughly translates to: “A wolf changes its hair, but never its nature.” All the Trump’s huffing & puffing is just noise & distraction, and enteraintment for the masses.