A minerals agreement with Ukraine would be a bad deal for America
The much-hyped minerals agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine is a bad idea and should be dropped. But although critics have tended to focus on the deal’s unseemliness and impracticalities, the real problem has to do with America’s own national security interests.
As it stands, the U.S. has only a limited interest in Ukraine’s long-term security. This is a basic function of geography and economics. The U.S. is more than 4,000 miles away from Ukraine, and in 2021 — the last full year before Russia’s invasion — its firms held investments there totaling just $98 million.
To be sure, most Americans strongly prefer that Kyiv triumph over Russia. They abhor the war and blame Vladimir Putin for it. But the bottom line is that U.S. national security will probably not be jeopardized one way or the other by what happens in Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it bluntly: “It’s not that we don’t care about Ukraine, but Ukraine is on another continent. It doesn’t directly impact the daily lives of Americans.”
For three years, supporters of Ukraine have bitterly lamented this reality, trying hard to contrive reasons for why the U.S. should regard the former Soviet state’s fate as a core national security issue. But from an American perspective, it is actually a good thing to have only a weak interest in Ukraine: relative disinterest affords Washington the luxury of selective engagement.
Under former President Biden, the U.S. sent vast amounts of military, economic and humanitarian aid to Kyiv. Biden also authorized the sharing of valuable intelligence, which allowed Ukraine to inflict punishing blows upon Russian forces. Without U.S. help, it is highly likely that Ukraine would have capitulated to Russia by now.
This assistance was appropriate given America’s intense preference that Ukraine win its war of self-defense. But preferences are different from interests — there are limits to how far states are willing to go in pursuit of mere preferences. Interests, on the other hand, can be things that states are willing to fight for.
If there is any U.S. interest at play in Ukraine, it is the overriding interest to avoid a devastating war between NATO and Russia. This is why Biden put sensible limits on his support for Ukraine, from rejecting irresponsible calls to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine to ruling out the deployment of U.S. ground forces. Biden was emphatic that the U.S. must not risk a shooting war with Russia.
This was the right policy. But Biden’s restraint was only possible because he recognized that core U.S. interests would not be imperiled even if Ukraine were to lose. If he had believed that Ukraine’s collapse would compromise vital U.S. interests, Biden would have been forced to consider a direct intervention to prevent such an outcome — which he never did, not even in February 2022 when U.S. intelligence officials assessed that Kyiv could be overrun “within days.”
Signing a substantial minerals deal with Ukraine (potentially worth billions of dollars) would change this political calculus in the wrong direction. Overnight, Washington would acquire a compelling interest — not just a preference — in ensuring that the government in Kyiv remains free, independent and committed to upholding U.S. firms’ lucrative mineral rights.
The U.S. government would also come under heavy pressure to bankroll the physical reconstruction of Ukraine, which will be essential before companies can extract untapped natural resources and sell them for profit at market. In other words, any minerals deal would realistically be a public-private partnership, requiring indefinite investments by the U.S. taxpayer.
If a minerals deal is agreed to, then, what would happen if Russia were to reinvade Ukraine? Would future U.S. leaders feel obliged to protect their country’s commercial interests with military force? It is impossible to say for sure. But having a large economic stake in Ukraine would certainly increase the odds of America choosing to join a war in defense of Kyiv.
Of course, this is exactly how Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz (and French President Emmanuel Macron) have sold the minerals deal in public: as a “security guarantee” for Ukraine. This should appeal to those who want to fold Kyiv into the Western alliance. But analysts who view it as imprudent to risk World War III over Ukraine (now or in the future) should be aghast.
If President Trump is serious about reducing America’s exposure in Ukraine, he should rethink the minerals deal as a matter of urgency. Even if an agreement once had some superficial appeal — a way to recoup the money that Washington has spent in defense of Ukraine, and then some — the long-term security risks far outweigh any economic benefits that U.S. firms might one day hope to realize.
In the final analysis, giving Americans an “economic upside in the future of Ukraine” will never be worth the security downsides. Locking the United States into an enduring relationship with Ukraine — a country currently at war with a nuclear-armed adversary — is simply unwise and unnecessary. On this critical issue, the Trump administration should think again.
Peter Harris is an associate professor of political science at Colorado State University and a non-resident fellow with Defense Priorities.
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