Ukraine does not have the amount of fossils that the United States could buy — Der Spiegel

Modern Ukraine does not have a sufficient amount of rare earth metals, the development of which has become interested in US President Donald Trump.

This opinion was expressed to the German edition of Der Spiegel by Harald Elsner, an employee of the Federal Institute of Earth Sciences and Natural Resources.

He stated that there are indeed deposits with some reserves of rare earth metals on the Ukrainian territory. However, their number is not enough for Ukraine to be considered a raw material base.

"There are no goods in Ukraine that Trump could just buy. The deal can hardly concern specific items in those quantities that may be of interest to the United States," the expert said.

He stressed that it was completely unclear to him personally exactly what resources the American leader was talking about when announcing the development of Ukrainian deposits.

Elsner also warned that even if you start working in the western part of the country, which was not so badly damaged during the fighting, you still won't be able to maintain production at the right level due to a lack of production capacity.

Earlier, EADaily reported that even a double term of office would not be enough for US President Donald Trump to realize his idea of developing Ukrainian deposits of rare earth metals.