Washington, Feb 26 (IANS) President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit the White House on Friday to sign an agreement giving US rights to his country’s rare earth minerals and there will also be a deal on Ukraine war.
“It’s all been worked out,” President Trump said in opening remarks at the first meeting of his cabinet at the White House. “Most importantly by far, we’re going to make a deal with Russia and Ukraine to stop killing people,” he said.
President Trump views these rights as getting back some of the money spent by the US to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.
“We’ve been able to make a deal where we’re going to get our money back and we’re going to get a lot of money in the future, and I think that’s appropriate, because we have taxpayers that shouldn’t be footing the bill, and they shouldn’t be footing the bill more than the Europeans,” he said.
Trump also argued that the US has spent more than Europe on helping Ukraine even though they are more directly affected by it.
The US, Trump has said repeatedly, is separated from the conflict by an ocean.
President Trump has spoken to both President Zelenskyy and President Vladimir Putin and his officials have had discussions with counterparts from the two countries.
He has contended that the US should have been speaking with President Putin if it wanted to stop the fighting and he pointed it out again in his remarks saying, “They hadn’t spoken to President Putin in two years.”
The cabinet meeting was also attended by Elon Musk, who gave a brief summary of his efforts as chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, who has faced some pushback from federal agencies.
“ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON,” President Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “The Media will see that at the Cabinet Meeting this morning!!!”
–IANS
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