Trump's deal with Zelensky: surrender rare earth minerals or lose Starlink.

(with acknowledgement to Ray Stevens, in "Along came Jones")
"If'n you dont give me the deed to your ranch, I'll tie you to the railroad tracks"
And since when does the US government own Starlink? Oh Right. Musk owns the government..😷

As near as I can tell the whole think is just theatre. Because Zelensky cannot deliver anyway. The mines and miners are almost exclusively in regions Kiev has had no control over in a decade at this point.

Even my local bank wants security in case I default or die

Vultures gotta eat too

Trump has always played by mafia extortionist rules, so why would Trump's behavior be any different with any country that had any business dealings at all involving the US government or the US military? Trump is a mobster and there's no arguing that fact.

If Ukraine had been a member of NATO, none of this would be happening from Trump because Ukraine would have already paid their annual NATO membership dues of 2 or 3% GDP and would therefore be owing NATO nothing extra for their military services.

But having said that, if Ukraine had already become a member of NATO prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine which Ukraine currently is not, then Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine in the first place and we wouldn't be having this conversation now.

Ukraine is stuck between a rock and a hard place because they never made a move to become a member of NATO prior to Putin's invasion, but suddenly learned the benefits of having club membership the hard way. Ukraine was never part of NATO despite Russia sitting on Ukraine's doorstep, yet the whole NATO community came to Ukraine's aid despite Ukraine not having paid a penny into the support NATO offers their membership community.

What now? How does Ukraine pay for all that military support? Probably through the mining of rare minerals from their country instead of paying cash for 'a la carte' NATO military services, would be my guess.

I hope Zelensky replies “Nuts.”

trump needs to back off or he is going to get embarrassed again. He tried to tell a big lie about the invasion being Ukraine’s fault until the Republican Senators broke his arm.

JacKX KniFEz NoTz CheCKz MatEZ