On Thursday, Ukraine and the United States signed a much-anticipated deal involving rare-earth minerals that will be used to further the end of the war with Russia. The fundamentals of the agreement are said to give the US preferential access to new minerals deals in Ukraine which will also be used to aid the war-torn country’s reconstruction.
Retired US Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Newsmax that while the agreement gives the US “skin in the game,” he noted there are still more rare-earth metals in the US than in Ukraine.
“The issue becomes production facilities. Someone is going to have to process those things. So yeah, we could mine them. It’s going to take between five to 10 years before we’re going to see any real output. But the question goes, where do they go right now? China has all the processing capacity. That’s got to stop no matter what. So we buy these things there, bring them here for processing,” he said during an appearance on “The Chris Salcedo Show.”
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