This story was originally published on Vince Beiser’s Substack, Power Metal, to which you can subscribe here.
Just days before President Trump called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator” who was somehow to blame for Russia’s invasion of his country, Trump floated the only slightly less controversial idea that Kyiv should pay the US for protection, in the form of Ukrainian minerals. “I told them I want the equivalent of like, $500 billion worth of rare earth, and they’ve essentially agreed to do that,” he said on Fox News on February 10. “We have to get something.”
Besides the glaring moral questions this proposal raises, there’s a practical one: Can Ukraine actually deliver what Trump wants?
Breaking China’s critical metal dominance “is one of the main geopolitical drivers in Washington right now.”
First, as the author of a recent book that covers the global trade and geopolitics of metals, I’m sure Trump is not talking only about rare earths. This is a term that confuses many people; it’s often mistakenly applied to all the critical metals we need for the Electro-Digital Age. In fact, rare earths are a subset of those critical metals.
Rare earths are a group of 17 obscure, esoterically named elements, like praseodymium and yttrium, that are crucial for electric car motors, cellphones, wind turbines, and a range of health and military technologies. The more familiar-sounding critical metals, like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper, are not rare earths.
Anyway, Ukraine does have some rare earths. But no one knows exactly how much, or even where they are. Ukraine’s claims about its mineral riches are based on Soviet-era exploration that was carried out decades ago. “Unfortunately, there is no modern assessment” of rare earth reserves in Ukraine, the former director general of the Ukrainian Geological Survey told S&P Global. And there aren’t any active rare earth mines, either.
We do know that Ukraine holds sizable deposits of several other important metals and minerals, including:
- Lithium, graphite, and to a lesser extent nickel and cobalt, all of which are needed for the batteries that run EVs, cell phones and other cordless electronics
- Titanium, important for many military technologies
- Gallium and germanium, essential for semiconductors, TV and phone screens, solar panels, and military gear
In theory, gaining access to Ukraine’s minerals could not only make America money but help it reduce its dependence on China for these substances. The danger of that dependence was highlighted in December when Beijing banned exports of gallium and germanium. Breaking China’s critical metal dominance “is one of the main geopolitical drivers in Washington right now,” Bryan Bille, a policy expert at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, tells me.
And Ukraine is willing to cut some kind of deal. Kyiv has been courting American investment since 2023. According to the New York Times, that push included a Trump-Zelensky meeting and visits to the US from Ukrainian officials pitching deals for lithium and titanium. The US and Ukraine are still discussing some kind of metals-for-security deal.
Whatever happens at the abstract heights of international diplomacy, however, there are major obstacles on the ground. Ukraine’s metals aren’t piled up in a treasure chamber somewhere. They’re in the ground—often in ground that Russian troops are standing on.
As much as half of Ukraine’s total mineral resources are estimated to be in the four eastern regions largely occupied by Russia. At least two established lithium deposits are in Russian-held territory, and another is just a few miles from the current front line. Few investors want to put their cash into mines within artillery range of a war zone.
Mines also require lots of energy, and the war has mauled Ukraine’s power grid. Ditto for roads and other transportation infrastructure. Plus there’s the inevitable environmental damage to be considered. Critical metal mining in Ukraine “has the potential to impact wetlands and rivers, old-growth forest and steppe,” cautions the Conflict and Environment Observatory.
“Given these barriers to mining and investment, we don’t expect any new substantial critical mineral supply anytime soon,” says Bille. Nor, it seems, should Ukraine expect any substantial new help from America anytime soon. Indeed, amid the negotiations over Ukraine’s future, Russian president Vladimir Putin, eager to reciprocate America’s newly friendly attitude toward his country, has extended a metallic olive branch.
On Monday, the Times reported, Putin bragged on state TV that “Russia’s deposits of rare earth minerals used in high-tech manufacturing were ‘orders of magnitude’ greater than Ukraine’s. He said Russia could work with American companies to help develop those deposits, even inside Russian-occupied Ukraine.”
