A potential deal between the US and Ukraine on rare earth minerals will be a “game-changer” for increasing the Trump administration’s backing for Ukraine, said South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Saturday.
Kyiv and Washington are in talks to come to an agreement that would give the US the right to extract important minerals, including rare earth minerals, which are used in many everyday and high-tech appliances, as well as military equipment. US President Donald Trump suggested earlier this week that this deal is a requirement for Ukraine to continue receiving military assistance.
“If the mineral agreement goes ahead, it’s a nightmare for Putin because we’ve got something to defend that we didn’t have before,” Graham told the Munich Security Conference.
“They’re sitting on top of trillions of dollars’ worth of minerals that all of us can benefit from,” he said.
It’s a “game changer, because President Trump can go to the American people and say Ukraine’s not a burden, it’s a benefit”, he said, adding: “So you’d better be cheering for this minerals agreement.”
Graham told the conference that the US Senate was solidly behind America’s involvement and membership of Nato, despite some less enthusiastic comments from US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth who said European Security was no longer a top priority for the US.
Graham said the American Senate is firmly on Nato’s side.
“There’s a bit of a isolationist vibe going on in the Republican party, but we’ve been dealing with that since the formation of NATO.”
“We need NATO more than ever now. Putin wouldn’t invade a NATO country because he knows the consequences would be too harsh.”
He claimed the West would be “stupid” if it doesn’t significantly boost its military aid to Kyiv; highlighting the chances for deal-making for his home state’s arms manufacturers.
“If we don’t supply Ukraine with the maximum amount of support possible, then we’d be ashamed. They need more F-16s, not fewer, and they’re manufactured in South Carolina.”
We’d be foolish not to create the most formidable Ukrainian military possible as a deterrent.
Graham said “lessons were learned” from the failure of successive Western governments to take a strong stance against Putin’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, for fear of “provoking” him further.
We stuffed up in 2014.
We should have integrated our economies with Ukraine to give ’em a fair dinkum chance, but we didn’t do that ’cause we were worried about stirrin’ up Putin.
We should’ve bolstered the Ukrainian military so an invasion would’ve been much more difficult, but we didn’t do that because we were keen to avoid antagonising Putin.
“And we never told him what would happen if he did it again because we didn’t want to risk antagonising Putin.”
Don’t sweat about riling up Putin, focus on stopping Putin.
