U.S.-Ukraine Critical Minerals Agreement: Strategic Potential and Challenges:

Suspense crime, Digital Desk : The past decade has seen a sharp global demand increase in a variety of critical minerals with their features being renewable energy, modern industry, and defense systems. Unfortunately, foes of competition heavily impacts the pricing which skyrockets minerals and drives countries to hunt for new stable sources to compete in the world market. Ukraine stands out internationally as it has over five percent of the world reserves.

During the 30th of April, Trump formally sanctioned a critical mineral deal with Ukraine and provided claims of the US getting special access to Ukrainians resources. The deal is expected to form a shared venture capital to help fund the recovering efforts in the country. From the perspective of Kiev, this is a good deal as it guarantees permanent support from Washington. Nevertheless, this arrangement is perceived as questionable considering the global stress.

Ukraine’s Mineral Assets

Minerals of Ukraine are prized at financially about fourteen trillion dollars. They have critical minerals mapped more than twenty thousand sights with over 116 types of minerals making up the record. Some of the primary are:

Rare earth elements: Yttrium, lanthanum, neodymium and cerium found within the central and the north of Ukrainian shields.

Manganese: Nikopol basin major source.

Graphite, Zirconium, Lithium: Elements of the energy and electronics systems storage

Urainium: Located in the region of Kirovohrad.

Titanium: Stored in Zhitomir and Dnipro.

These resources are essential for the production of electric cars, satellites, and military technology. Some of these reserves, however, are still being worked on and do not have updated geological surveys.

Ukraine's Mining Sector: Pre and Post Invasion

The mining sector in Ukraine was 10% of the GDP and a third of the country’s exports before the Russian invasion in 2022. It is, however, undisclosed how much of that revenue was generated from the rare earths. The war has caused major disruption to supply chains which is the most damaging for the high tech industries. take for instance, close to 50% of the neons used in semiconductors around the world, Ukraine supplied them, and all exports have come to a standstill since the start of conflict.

Strategic Intent Behind the Deal

Establishing a secure and comprehensive supply chain of critical minerals is the aim of the US. Western countries, have begun controlling exports to China due to its hegemony of supplying and processing minerals. This in retaliation from China has put a restriction on exporting its own minerals. This scenario has put Washington in need of trustworthy allies.

Interest in the minerals sector of Ukraine goes back before the Trump administration. The U.S. considers 50 minerals critical, and a U.S. Geological Survey notes that Ukraine possesses 22 of them. The preliminary offer was devoid of security provisions and increased fiscal strain on Ukraine. As a result of negotiations, Ukraine gained more favorable terms including the ability to approve extraction, debt relief, and ongoing support from the U.S. The American support package will also fund exploration for minerals and energy, as well as infrastructure development.

Problems Regarding Implementation and Feasibility

Ukraine does not have any commercially operational rare earth mines. It is critical to make a distinction between ‘resources’ (known substances) and ‘reserves’ (substances that can be profitably extracted). Developing a mineral site from exploration to production requires, on average, over a decade.

Even with significant reserves, Ukraine competes with Australia, Canada, Brazil, and Kazakhstan for access to more readily available supplies of similar minerals. For example, Ukraine contains 3% of global uranium reserves while Australia holds 28%.

Also, most of Ukraine's mineral information is either incomplete or outdated from the times of the Soviet Union. complicates the situation further is that some of the most mineral rich areas are found in regions currently controlled by Russian troops. Even though Russia has proposed the idea of cooperative mineral extraction in these zones, outside funding is highly improbable because of restrictions and the ambiguous legal framework.