Nick breaks down the upcoming Ukraine mineral deal between Trump and Zelensky, exploring its potential to tie the U.S. closer to Ukraine despite earlier promises to pull back. He also covers the German elections, noting the AFD party’s gains amid economic strain from the Ukraine war and Germany’s industrial decline.
The Ukraine mineral deal is a landmark agreement nearing its final stages between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, set to be signed during Zelensky’s upcoming trip to Washington later this week. This deal centers on Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth, which includes some of the world’s largest reserves of lithium, rare earth elements, cobalt, and substantial deposits of oil and natural gas. These resources are critical for modern industries—lithium and rare earths power batteries and electronics, while oil and gas remain vital energy sources. Ukraine’s mineral deposits have been valued in the trillions, making them a geopolitical prize amid its ongoing war with Russia. The agreement stems from the U.S.’s extensive financial support to Ukraine, which has amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid, including weapons, drones, and security equipment, since Russia’s invasion escalated.
Under the terms being negotiated, the U.S. would secure a significant financial stake in the profits from Ukraine’s mineral extraction operations. While the exact percentage hasn’t been publicly disclosed, it’s described as the “maximum allowed by law,” suggesting a substantial return on investment for American taxpayers. The deal emerged as a response to growing domestic pressure in the U.S. to justify the enormous wartime expenditures, with proponents arguing it offsets the aid by tapping into Ukraine’s resource wealth. However, the negotiations haven’t been straightforward. Ukraine initially demanded a formal security guarantee from the U.S., such as a commitment to deploy peacekeeping forces or even permanent troops to protect against Russian aggression. Early drafts of the agreement omitted this provision, leaving Zelensky to push harder for a concrete military commitment. As of now, it’s unclear whether the final version will include such a guarantee or stick to a purely economic arrangement. Adding complexity, the deal has raised concerns about environmental impacts and the feasibility of extracting these resources while Ukraine remains an active warzone, though these issues remain secondary to the geopolitical stakes.
This deal is a disaster masquerading as a victory. On the surface, it looks like a pragmatic move—America has poured billions into Ukraine, so why not recoup some of that through minerals? But dig deeper, and it’s clear this ties us tighter to a conflict we should be exiting. If the U.S. starts profiting from Ukraine’s lithium and rare earths, we’re not just investors; we’re stakeholders with a financial incentive to ensure those mines keep running. That means more troops, more bases, and more entanglement—not less. The whole point of America First was to cut these overseas commitments, not swap one form of involvement (military aid) for another (economic exploitation). The absence of a security guarantee in early drafts was a faint glimmer of hope, but if Zelensky gets his way, we could end up with boots on the ground anyway. Even without that, the logic of protecting our investment points to a long-term presence. This isn’t a clean break from Ukraine; it’s a leash we’re tying around our own neck. And let’s not kid ourselves—Russia’s not going to sit idly by while we siphon off resources from a country it’s fighting to control. This deal doesn’t end our Ukraine problem; it escalates it.
The recent German elections have reshaped the country’s political landscape, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party achieving a historic breakthrough. The AFD doubled its vote share from 10% in the last election to 20% this time, securing the second-largest number of seats in the German legislature, the Bundestag. This surge reflects a growing wave of support for the party’s anti-immigration, Eurosceptic, and nationalist platform. Despite this electoral success, the AFD will remain sidelined from power. The center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which won the most votes but fell short of a majority, has chosen to form a coalition with left-leaning parties—the Social Democrats (SPD) and potentially the Greens—explicitly to exclude the AFD from the government. This move mirrors a long-standing “cordon sanitaire” strategy among Germany’s mainstream parties to keep the far-right out of power, even as its popularity grows.
The AFD’s rise is inseparable from Germany’s deepening economic crisis, which has been turbocharged by the Ukraine war. Once Europe’s industrial powerhouse, Germany is now grappling with deindustrialization as energy costs soar and supply chains falter. A key turning point was the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022, which severed Germany’s access to cheap Russian natural gas—a lifeline for its manufacturing sector. That sabotage, which smells like a U.S.-backed operation to kneecap Germany’s economy, has left factories shuttered and energy bills crushing households and businesses alike. Add to that the strain of supporting Ukraine with billions in aid and weapons, and you’ve got a recipe for voter fury. The AFD has seized on this discontent, campaigning on promises to halt immigration (blaming it for social and economic woes), pull back from Ukraine, and put German interests first. Their gains were especially strong in eastern Germany, where economic decline and skepticism of the European Union run deep.
Locking the AFD out of the coalition is a colossal misstep. Twenty percent of voters didn’t back this party because they’re bored—they’re furious about an economy in freefall and a government that’s prioritizing Ukraine over its own people. The CDU cozying up to the SPD and Greens just doubles down on the same policies that got Germany into this mess: endless EU integration, open borders, and bleeding cash for a war that’s not ours. Nord Stream’s destruction was a gut punch to German industry, and instead of addressing that, the establishment is pretending everything’s fine. The AFD isn’t perfect, but its voters are signaling real pain—rising costs, dying factories, a sense of national decline. Shutting them out doesn’t solve those problems; it buries them. This coalition might hold power for now, but it’s lighting a fuse under Germany’s political stability. The divide’s only going to grow when people see their grievances ignored.