If President Trump manages to pull off an arrangement that ends the war in Ukraine while reimbursing the United States for some of the tens of billions it has sent to that country, most would see that as a huge win for the world as well as for our country.
"Most"--but not all. The liberal media will do its best to naysay and second-guess any such deal.
Take Friday's Morning Joe. Joe Scarborough dug deep in his history books to analogize the prospective US-Ukraine deal to the Treaty of Versailles, which was a key to the ending of WWI. Scarborough didn't explain his analogy, but presumably was alluding to the heavy reparation obligations that the Treaty imposed on Germany for having instigated the war.
And then there was historian and former occasional Biden speechwriter Jon Meacham, who called the deal, and by extension Trump, "imperialist."
Like Scarborough, Meacham didn't explain himself, but might have been referring to the imperialist practice of exploiting the natural resources of its colonies. The huge difference here is that the US would be seeking reimbursement for having come to the aid of Ukraine, to the tune of over $100 billion, in defending itself against Russia.
Morning Joe, in the person of Willie Geist, also poured cold water over Trump's suggestion that the presence of many Americans in Ukraine for purposes of extracting and exporting the rare earth minerals under the deal would provide security for Ukraine. Geist:
"That offer there is not going to provide a lot of comfort to President Zelensky, the people of Ukraine, or to Europe, by the way, that just by virtue of us being there, the United States having a presence in Ukraine, nobody's going to mess with us. "
But more than half of Ukraine's rare earth minerals are reportedly located in the four regions annexed by Russia in 2022. If Americans were sent into those regions to extract the minerals, surely Putin would understand that any action that could potentially harm them would have to be met with a forceful American response.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/28/25
6:07 am ETWILLIE GEIST: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet this morning with President Trump at the White House. The leaders expected to sign a deal giving the United States ownership of some rare earth minerals in Ukraine, although the specific details have not yet been disclosed.
The talks follow a tense back and forth with Zelensky rejecting Trump's earlier proposal that the US take $500 billion worth of minerals without offering security guarantees.
While Trump has downplayed security commitments, he claimed yesterday American involvement alone provides some level of protection.
DONALD TRUMP: President Zelensky's coming to see me on Friday, Friday morning, and we're going to be signing really a very important agreement for both sides because it's really going to get us into that country.
We'll be working there. We'll have a lot of people working there. And so in that sense, it's very good. It's a backstop, you could say. I don't think anybody's going to play around if we're there with a lot of workers and having to do with rare earths and other things which we need for our country.
And we appreciate it very much and I look forward to seeing him.
GEIST: So, Joe, that offer there is not going to provide a lot of comfort to President Zelensky, the people of Ukraine, or to Europe, by the way, that just by virtue of us being there, the United States having a presence in Ukraine, nobody's going to mess with us.
. . .
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I also, I've got to say, I'm curious what your thoughts are about a proposed $500 billion, I don't know exactly what you would call it, pay, payoff from Ukraine to the United States of America.
It seems to me like we're getting into Treaty of Versailles material there. That would, first of all, it doesn't line up with how much the United States has loaned Ukraine. And secondly, it's, it would be crippling to an economy that has to get rebuilt after this war finally ends.
JON MEACHAM: Yeah, in more ways than one it's a pre-1914 maneuver. It's a kind of imperialist. Basically, Zelensky's renting us or we're renting ourselves to them, for a certain amount of money and asset.
