It is plain as day light that the rare earths agreement that Washington has presented to Kiev is akin to an all-too familiar extortionary deal. This is the outcome of U.S. President Donald Trump’s sharp pivot to Russia since he entered the White House in January that has stunned even the most trenchant of Washington’s European critics.

His sudden telephone call to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in early February caught unawares national leaders across the European Union and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), as well as the government in Ukraine.

Then, as President Trump despatched American national security officials for negotiations with their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia, a pattern began to emerge, where Washington would go it alone, blindsiding and isolating traditional U.S. allies and throwing world opinion to the winds.

Telling, indeed, was the line-up of top U.S. and Russian officials: American secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, among others.

President Trump, the forever winner, had by now calculated that Russia under Putin was the stronger of the two warring sides. Ever since, he has not lost an opportunity to advertise his support for Moscow in the UN General Assembly, the Security Council and the Group of Seven countries’ forum, even at the cost of alienating America’s allies.

Once the determination to back the Russian strongman was made, it was a matter of detail what means Washington would deploy to wrest control of the rare earths under Ukrainian soil. Among the rich Ukrainian minerals in Trump’s sights are lithium, graphite, cobalt, and titanium, all of which are useful in missile production and shipbuilding, and estimated at $11.5 trillion.

They also include rare earths such as scandium, essential ingredients in the defence and electric vehicle industries. As these raw materials are spread across the entire country, a not inconsiderable proportion could well be in Russian-occupied territory, a reason to placate Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been arm-twisted to agree to the terms of the deal he would sign with the U.S. Washington would acquire automatic ownership of as much as 50% of the rights to Ukraine’s critical mineral resources under the agreement treasury secretary Scott Bessent has proposed.

The terse message conveyed to Kiev is that the metals deal was down payment for past assistance from Washington. The U.S. national security adviser, Mike Waltz, was even more firm as he described Mr Trump as the “President of peace.” He insisted at a Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland last week that the two parties will seal the deal in the short term.

President Zelenskyy has rejected the proposal, emphasising that it contained no guarantees for Ukraine’s security against future Russian aggression. Officials in Kiev have also clarified that the provisions in the minerals agreement had to be compatible with the country’s constitution.

The groundwork for these strong-arm methods had already been well laid by Trump, who first railed against the billions of dollars Washington had ‘unfairly’ poured into the war effort, well in excess of the burden the Europeans had assumed.

Then followed the blatant name-calling of President Zelenskyy as a “dictator,” falsely accusing him of starting the war and challenging him to call a general election amid the conflict. All of this is of a piece with Trump’s repeated insinuations against Canada as the 51^st U.S. state, his bid to acquire the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, and seizing control of the Panama Canal.

Ironically, Zelenskyy is not entirely without his share of responsibility for the deepening rift over the exchange of Ukrainian minerals. In a hugely miscalculated gambit last September, Zelenskyy lured the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump with access to his country’s rich raw materials in return for a peace deal with Russia. That “victory plan” had envisaged the replacement of U.S. troops stationed in Ukraine with domestic forces after the war. Another aspect of that proposal was the now contentious sharing of the country’s natural resources with Western partners. Ludicrously enough, the idea was apparently to hand over Trump the power to filter potential investors, under a move dubbed “ABC” (Anybody but China).

Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s relative neophyte politician, may well be justified in his apprehensions over the extent of material support the country has received from its European neighbours during this protracted conflict. Such scepticism would only grow louder should the terms of an eventual peace agreement prove too onerous and not particularly honourable for a small nation that has long nurtured aspirations for EU and NATO membership.

Following a landslide victory in April 2019, Zelenskyy, the former comedian turned anti-establishment politician, named his party Servant of the People, after a popular television series. In a much-publicised debate ahead of that contest, the man who once donned the role of an honest school teacher, attacked his rival and predecessor Petro Poroshenko, saying, “I’m a judgement on you. I’m the result of your mistakes.” Nearly six years on, these words seem to resonate from a tragicomedy from a different era.