The Ukraine “war is about money”, argued US Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Donald Trump.
Two weeks after Trump won the November presidential election, Graham went on Fox News to salivate over Ukraine’s critical minerals.
“The richest country in all of Europe, for rare earth minerals, is Ukraine”, said the Republican US senator, in a video clip he posted on his official YouTube channel.
He estimated that the Eastern European country has “$2 to $7 trillion worth of minerals that are rare earth minerals, very relevant to the 21st century”.
“Donald Trump is going to do a deal to get our money back, to enrich ourselves with rare earth minerals”, Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
The Ukraine "war is about money", and the US wants to control its trillions of dollars worth of critical minerals, said US Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally.
He promised, "Trump is going to do a deal to get our money back, to enrich ourselves with rare earth minerals". pic.twitter.com/9Xl5GY56KW
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) March 1, 2025
Graham has repeatedly visited Ukraine and met with its leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Ukraine is ready to do a deal with us, not the Russians”, the US senator stressed. “So it’s in our interest to make sure that Russia doesn’t take over the place”.
Ukraine is “the breadbasket of, really, the developing world”, Graham continued. “50% of all the food going to Africa comes out of Ukraine”.
“We can make money and have an economic relationship with Ukraine, to be very beneficial to us, with peace”, he added.
Graham has made similar remarks before.
In September, Graham led a US Congressional delegation to Ukraine.
In Kiev, the US senator tweeted a video standing next to Zelensky, in which he stated, “They’re sitting on a trillion dollars worth of minerals that could be good to our economy”.
US Senator Lindsey Graham says Ukraine is a "gold mine" with $12 trillion worth of critical minerals, which the West "can't afford to lose".
US companies want these resources, and Washington hopes to block China's access to them to hurt its tech industries.
(Full video below) pic.twitter.com/Q9AR8YUpfN
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) June 12, 2024
In a June interview on CBS, Graham called Ukraine a “gold mine” that the West “can’t afford to lose”.
“They’re sitting on $10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine”, Graham said.
“They could be the richest country in all of Europe”, he emphasized. “I don’t want to give that money and those assets to Putin to share with China”.
