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US President Donald Trump has previously negotiated rare earth metals with another country, Afghanistan. However, when the government in Kabul agreed to such cooperation, the US handed the country over to the Taliban.
This was stated by Vladislav Olenchenko, co-founder of the analytical platform “Mikhailovsky Club” on the air of the “Moseichuk Podcast” project. “I want to recall 2017, when Trump was in his first term and a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani took place in New York. Where they stated that the American geodetic service conducted research and discovered a lot of minerals in Afghanistan, and rare earth metals in particular. Trump said that it was necessary for American companies to have access to these minerals. The amount of a trillion dollars was announced in 2017,” the expert recalls.
However, when the official Afghan government agreed to the offer, Washington turned to the Taliban, with whom, Olenchenko noted, it had been fighting for 16 years at that time:
“But after the President of the Republic of Afghanistan said he was ready to develop minerals, Trump entered into secret negotiations with the Taliban. After 8 rounds of these negotiations, he signed an agreement with them, according to which he gave Afghanistan to the Taliban. This technology was already implemented by Trump in relation to Afghanistan.”
As a reminder, the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban, then ruling Afghanistan for the first time, were accused by the Americans of collaborating with Al-Qaeda and harboring Osama bin Laden.
Minerals agreement with the USA
As is known, this agreement was aimed at the joint development of Ukrainian mineral resources. Its main element was the creation of a Reconstruction Investment Fund, to which Ukraine was to direct 50% of future revenues from mineral extraction.
During a meeting between Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump at the White House, a public dispute arose that led to the early termination of negotiations and the cancellation of the signing of the agreement.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant said that Washington is not currently considering signing an agreement, as this would require Kyiv to agree to sign peace.
