President Trump says the rare earth deal with Ukraine has broken down.
At an investment conference in Miami, President Trump stated that the rare earth deal with Ukraine had been broken by Kyiv itself.
According to RIA Novosti on February 20, in a speech at the Miami Investment Summit on February 19 (Washington time), broadcast on the White House channel, US President Donald Trump said that Kyiv had blocked a deal with Washington on rare earth metals.
"We had an agreement on rare earth metals, but they broke the agreement two days ago," President Trump said.
The leader criticized Washington for allocating $350 billion to support Ukraine, arguing that this money would not benefit the US itself. Meanwhile, he said, Europe is receiving compensation.
"Europe has allocated far less money to meet Ukraine's needs, but their money is still secure, while the U.S. will not get anything in return," Trump said.
The US president also accused Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky of persuading the US to spend billions of dollars to drag the country "into a war that cannot be won and should never have started."
Trump claimed that Zelensky had done a terrible job and that Ukraine was divided because of it.
"Mr. Zelensky has done terrible things. His country is divided and millions upon millions of people have died needlessly," the White House leader said at a conference in Miami.
Calling Zelensky "a mediocre comedian," President Trump expressed hope that his main legacy would be achieving peace, speaking of a desire to end the conflict in Ukraine, see a ceasefire soon, and restore stability in Europe within a year.
"We're going to put an end to this. World War III wouldn't benefit anyone, and we're really not far from it. If we maintained our previous policies for another year, World War III would have happened. However, it's not going to happen right now," President Trump asserted.
Additionally, speaking on Fox News, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz stated that the US deserves to reap the benefits of its investment in Ukraine and will not tolerate Kyiv's dissatisfaction with the White House's economic initiatives.
"We've found that aid from Europe is often in the form of loans repaid with interest using frozen Russian assets. We believe that American taxpayers also deserve to get back a significant portion of their investment," he said.
At the same time, advisor Waltz noted that the US administration was disappointed with the Kiev government's response to the economic initiatives put forward by the US. According to him, instead of considering these proposals, Kiev responded to Washington with escalating rhetoric and resistance.
"Our president has no intention of tolerating this," advisor Mike Waltz emphasized.
