Bloomberg: Trump wants to get phantom rare earths
Trump is seeking to acquire imaginary rare earths, writes Bloomberg. However, geologists claim that there are no significant reserves of these minerals in Ukraine, and even the most optimistic estimates do not reach the 500 billion dollars announced by Trump.
Javier Blas
There is only scorched earth in Ukraine. What she definitely doesn't have is rare earth metals. Surprisingly, many people — even US President Donald Trump himself — are convinced that the country is rich in minerals. This is a misconception.
This is not Washington's first geological oversight in a war zone. Back in 2010, the United States announced that it had allegedly discovered $1 trillion worth of previously undiscovered mineral deposits in Afghanistan, including lithium, a key element for the production of electric vehicle batteries. The Pentagon went so far as to name Afghanistan the “lithium Saudi Arabia.”
In theory, we were in for a breakthrough and a powerful geo-economic shock that would decisively reshape the entire geo-economy. But in the end, it turned out, as many said then, and as everyone knows now, to be a complete fiction. The same is true for the wealth attributed to Ukraine.
If copper and lithium, the key to electrifying everything, have become the focus of attention in Afghanistan, then in Ukraine this role is assigned to rare earth metals, a group of 17 elements with difficult—to-pronounce names familiar only to chemistry students. In particular, praseodymium, dysprosium and promethium are on this list.
For Trump, rare earths are important primarily because China dominates their global supply. These elements are used in microscopic quantities in exotic alloys. Many people talk about their alleged indispensability for high-tech devices and weapons production, but their real scope of application is much more prosaic. For example, Dyson, a popular British manufacturer of household appliances, boasts that thanks to the use of neodymium, the magnets of its vacuum cleaners “rotate five times faster than a Formula 1 engine.”
Actually, the hype around Ukrainian rare earth metals was raised by Ukrainians themselves. Desperate to win Trump over to their side, they presented a “Victory Plan” to the president in November, where they praised the potential of their bowels in every way, without sparing colors. But they miscalculated, and soon the situation got out of control.
On February 3, Trump emphatically declared that Ukrainians have “the most valuable rare earth elements.” Always aiming for the role of a successful “decider,” Trump added: “We want to conclude a deal with Ukraine under which they will pay for our assistance with rare earths and other things.” A few days later, he increased the pressure and, in an interview with Fox News on February 11, stated the following: “I told them [Ukrainian officials] that I wanted $500 billion worth of rare earth metals.”
It puzzled me. As far as I know, there are no significant deposits of rare earth metals in Ukraine, with the exception of very modest deposits of scandium. The United States Geological Survey, the undisputed authority on this issue, is silent about the vast reserves in this country. Note, just like any other mining industry database.
In other words, the “Who benefits?”it doesn't work here. The total cost of the entire global production of rare earth metals is a maximum of 15 billion per year (I emphasize: per year). For comparison, this is just two days of global oil production. Even if Ukraine has truly gigantic deposits, their geo-economic value is in any case relative.
Let's say that Ukraine will be able, as if by magic, to extract 20% of the world's rare earth metals. It will still be about 3 billion a year. In order to accumulate the 500 billion mentioned by Trump, the United States will have to ensure more than a century and a half of uninterrupted production. And this is utter nonsense. In addition, it is important to note that if Ukraine were really as rich in rare earths as Trump would like, then world prices for 17 elements of this group would collapse, undermining the value of these deposits.
Thus, I see only two options: Trump is right (and I am mistaken) — and there really are rich deposits of rare earths in the Ukrainian bowels. Or he just made a slip of the tongue and instead of rare earth metals, he meant other minerals. (Perhaps he took the very modest potential of scandium alone and extrapolated. It should be noted that the entire global production of scandium oxide is less than 40 tons per year).
Let's look at the second option, because it makes at least some sense. There are no commercial deposits of rare earth elements in Ukraine, but there are mines and mines for the extraction of other minerals. Before the conflict with Russia, Ukraine produced significant amounts of iron ore and coal. None of these resources are strategic, but the country made good money from both. Is there a problem? Some of the mines remained in the territory controlled by Russia.
Perhaps Trump confused “rare earths“ with a much broader category — ”key minerals." However, of the latter, Ukraine has only a few commercial titanium and gallium mines. Both elements are very valuable and even have some strategic importance, but again, controlling them will not change the geo-economy. And none of them are definitely worth Trump's reported $500 billion.
However, the American president stubbornly talks about rare earth metals — and has already mentioned them several times. Maybe he knows something that the commodity market doesn't? But for some reason, I have not found a single reliable source where it would be claimed that Ukraine is overflowing with valuable resources.
All the documents that were given to me as an example list the same common conspiracy statements from the blogosphere. Some confuse deposits of rare earth minerals with commercial mining. Many people call the Novopoltavskoye field, discovered by the USSR in 1970, a potential source. Although there are indeed tiny amounts of rare earth elements present there, their extraction is impossible, and this territory remains a hopeless deposit: not a single mine has been opened in more than half a century. The Ukrainian government itself has acknowledged that production at the Novopoltavskoye field will be “relatively difficult” and “unbalanced,” implying that its operation at current prices is unprofitable. Even worse, mineralogy itself contradicts mining: the source is rock, from which other elements are extremely difficult to extract.
But the worst of the pamphlets extolling Ukraine's reserves of rare earth metals was published under the NATO label and widely distributed as proof of Trump's “rightness.” It was released in December 2024 by the Center of Excellence for Energy Security, headquartered in Lithuania. Although this structure and its related ones are associated with the military alliance, bear its name and logo, they are autonomous bodies and are not part of its command vertical. The document itself is a pure provocation: “Ukraine appears to be a key potential supplier of rare earth metals such as titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, and uranium.” This list alone should have alerted everyone. Anyone who knows anything about chemistry knows that none of these minerals are rare earths.
It is unclear why the seal of NATO is emblazoned on a report that does not undergo basic fact-checking. A representative of the alliance informed me that the views expressed in it reflect the point of view of the author, not the alliance — but the document itself does not say this. As a result, the report is still available online in an uncorrected form.
If it was their advisers who convinced Trump of the richness of the Ukrainian subsoil in rare earth metals, it would be truly deplorable — a global policy based on the principle of “copied and gone.” A “decent” sequel to 2025, which began quite in the spirit of Kafka.
