Summary
Ukraine is hesitating to sign a U.S.-backed deal that would grant American companies access to 50% of its rare earth minerals in exchange for continued military support.
President Zelenskyy cited legal concerns and the lack of security guarantees.
The deal, pushed by Trump allies, aims to showcase Ukraine’s value to U.S. interests while reducing reliance on Chinese minerals.
However, Kyiv’s 2021 strategic partnership with the EU complicates negotiations, as European leaders resist surrendering shared resources to Washington. Talks remain ongoing.
The audacity to frame resource extraction as “aid” would be impressive if it weren’t so transparent. Ukraine’s rare earth minerals aren’t collateral for loans—they’re the spoils of geopolitical brinkmanship, dressed in the rotting corpse of diplomacy.
Trump’s team operates like feudal overlords, demanding tribute from a nation under siege. Those minerals power everything from missiles to smartphones. Calling this a “reimbursement” is like mugging a drowning man and calling it debt collection.
Now they’re floating troop deployments to “guard” these assets? Please. This isn’t peacekeeping—it’s a protection racket, ensuring the extraction pipeline stays open while the propaganda machine spins conquest as charity.
I figured it was more like the tributary system in imperial China
China usually gave gifts back to those states which was much more valuable than the tribute itself. Koreans were famously abusing it by sending tribute multiple times a year. China had to put a limit on them because it became a problem.
That’s a fair analogy, but even the tributary system had a veneer of mutual benefit—imperial China at least pretended to offer cultural or economic exchange. This? It’s pure extraction with none of the pretense.
The modern empire doesn’t bother with subtlety; it just calls the theft “aid” and expects applause. At least the tributary states got to keep their sovereignty on paper. Here, sovereignty is collateral damage in the race for resources.
What we’re witnessing isn’t just imperialism; it’s a corporate feudalism where nations are reduced to resource farms for the highest bidder. The tributary system had rituals; this has press releases.
Good point, I would have said technofuedalism, but yours is probably more apt, and describes Curtis Yarvins vision more appropriately
That’s a very apt analogy. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but Trump’s demands so far remind me of his stupid nonsense about making Mexico pay for his wall back in 2016.
He honestly thinks everyone’s just going to lay down.
He operates under the assumption that audacity equals strategy, as if shouting demands into the void will make them manifest. The “Mexico will pay for it” fiasco was the prototype: a hollow threat wrapped in nationalist theater. It’s not about anyone laying down; it’s about how long they can keep up the charade before the cracks show.
The real tragedy is that these tactics aren’t even subtle. It’s all brute force masquerading as diplomacy, a sledgehammer where a scalpel is needed. People see through it, but the machine churns on, feeding on apathy and short memories. The question isn’t whether anyone lays down—it’s whether anyone stands up long enough to matter.
Fuck, everyone has been giving us communists shit for the past 8 decades for explaining this is the exact way that imperialist powers operate in their colonies. Maybe we all will finally understand now that the Ukraine war was never a conflict of Russian expansionism vs Ukrainian national defence, but an imperialist proxy war between US and Russia?
If you’re being reductive to the point where you’re ignoring the importance of sovereignty and democracy, then it’s fair game to reduce communism to being just about some college kids that think Che Guevara T-Shirts look cool.
So it’s reductive to talk about imperialist wars, but not about “Russia want territory, Ukraine rightful defense”? Wanna talk sovereignty and democracy? We could start way back with Euromaidan. Funny how spontaneous and disorganised protests outside US-influence end up with pro-US regime changes, whereas huge protests movements lasting years such as the Occupy movement in the US, the Gilets Jeunes in France or the 15-M in Spain end up in nothing. I guess we don’t question democracy and sovereignty in these instances now, do we? No complex analysis to be had there