Alex Jacquez, who served as a senior official on minerals in the Biden administration, said it's extremely unlikely Ukraine has the ability to develop a new mining industry in lithium or rare earth metals, calling the trillions of dollars in natural resources claimed by the Trump administration to be illusory. Ukraine does have a large iron ore industry, but the draft agreement does not appear to include it. "The bottom line is Ukraine has deposits of a variety of critical minerals being valued at essentially imaginary numbers," Jacquez said. "There is a reason few of these mining projects are actually being developed outside of China - under current economic conditions, it makes little sense for investors." Stein reported from Washington. Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiu contributed to this report.
https://cdn.toad.social/media_attachments/files/114/429/995/013/319/987/original/67dd959d41ae57a2.jpeg