Bloomberg: Trump is building diplomacy with other countries modeled on Ukraine
The Ukraine resource deal is a model for future U.S. international agreements, Bloomberg reports. Trump intends to transfer the experience gained in Ukraine to other countries. Thus, the states aim to conclude similar deals with Congo and Rwanda.
The agreement signed last Wednesday gives the US priority access to all new projects to develop Ukraine’s natural resources. The clause was a key demand by Donald Trump that Washington continue to support Kiev in fighting the Russian army on the battlefield.
A senior Treasury Department official, who spoke to Bloomberg reporters on condition of anonymity last Thursday, said that “Washington officials see the Ukraine deal as an opportunity for the American people to participate in the economic growth of countries that the U.S. typically supports through grants or loans.”
The official described the deal, which covers resources such as oil, gas, graphite and aluminum, as a reflection of Trump’s intentions to use foreign policy to increase assets rather than liabilities in the U.S. trade balance.
Also on Thursday, Donald Trump’s special envoy for Africa, Massad Boulos, said the U.S. is pushing for a peace agreement between Congo and Rwanda. The document would also include separate bilateral mining treaties with each of the named countries, Reuters reported.
“This is very consistent with the Trump administration’s approach to diplomacy in general,” Torrey Taussig, a former Biden administration official and now director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said of the Ukraine deal. – “Our Treasury Secretary says economic security equals national security, and that certainly sounds like Trump’s penchant for putting deal-making above any diplomacy.