Ukraine resources deal is morally very grey

I have mixed feelings about the recent minerals and resources deal struck between Ukraine and USA. But first, what's actually in the deal? 

What's significantly NOT in the deal is any mention of Ukraine paying back $350 billion in US wartime aid to Ukraine that Trump was insisting on when this was last publicly discussed (remember that embarrassing Oval Office interview streamed live to air for all the world to see). This, then, seems to have been a win for Ukraine, although of course Trump would never admit that publicly.

Specifically mentioned is that the deal should not hamper Ukraine's ambitions to join the EU. Ukraine already has a strategic partnership with the EU on raw materials, and the text of the deal acknowledges that and pledges that the US deal will not step on any European toes.

The wording of the deal is also distinctly more anti-Russian than the Trump administration usual employs (maybe the Trump-Putin bromance is petering out?) which will hearten Ukraine and its other allies. For example, for almost the first time, the deal calls out "Russia's full-scale invasion".

On the other hand, the deal as it stands also includes Ukraine's oil and gas, not just its strategically important rare earth minerals (in fact, Ukraine has hardly any rare earth minerals, certainly not as much as Trump thinks it does, but it does have significant reserves of natural gas, oil and coal - I guess someone explained that to him recently). This marks a step up from the US's previous ambitions, although the document states that the resources in question will technically stay "in Ukrainian ownership" (for what that's worth).

There are still no concrete security guarantees built into the deal, and technically the US could walk away from it at any time. Implicit in the agreement is the idea that the US would not want to walk away from it because it is in its own commercial interests. This is not a strong guarantee, but it may be the best that can be negotiated with this intransigent American administration. 

Of course, the payback for Ukraine for giving away a share of its precious mineral wealth, is a renewed commitment of military assistance from the US. However, this is not spelled out in detail, and it will probably not be on the scale of Joe Biden's previous commitments, even if it is the whole raison d'etre for the deal as far as Ukraine is concerned.

One interesting element of the agreement (or at least of an additional "technical" deal that is proposed to accompany it) is that, for its first ten years, the USA will forego its share of the proceeds, which will be fully invested in Ukraine's economy, either in new projects or reconstruction. This seems very generous and un-Trumplike, so let's see whether it gets included in the final deal.

So, the deal represents a strange hybrid of the expected cynical realpolitik from the Trump administration, and something altogether more humanitarian and unexpected. Of course, coming from Trump's America, I really would not trust it to come to fruition or be upheld without a bunch more last minute changes.

I'm also very unsure about this kind of hard-negotiation arm-twisting in order to provide something that was freely given for years under the previous administration. Equating Ukraine's existential issues with commercial transactions and "filthy lucre" seems morally reprehensible somehow. But you can see why a desperate Ukraine might be tempted to agree to it, when their very existence is on the line.