Hello and welcome to the battleground podcast with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

Well, we're now into the third week of Donald Trump's presidency,

and we finally got the first clear signal that the US will not, after all, abandon Ukraine.

But the Donald, of course, wants something tangible in return, and that something is access

to rare earth minerals. That's right, Saul. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday,

and this is a quote, and you have to listen quite hard what he's saying here, it goes,

we're looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they're going to secure what we are giving them

with their rare earth and other things. I want security of the rare earth, and they're willing to do it.

Now, he's referring to the fact that Ukraine has upwards of 5% of the world's minerals,

these rare mineral supplies, worth an estimated 12 trillion pounds,

and that's vast reserves of lithium, titanium, manganese, gallium, and neodymium,

which are very, very important to new technologies, particularly electrical vehicle batteries, solar panels,

and cutting edge military hardware.

What I take that to mean, I don't know if you agree with this, all is that, he's saying,

we will carry on giving you military support in return for you giving us the rights to these strategic

rare earths. So that seems to be the deal. But do you think the Ukrainians are going to go for it?

Well, it seems they might actually. I mean, you could see in the quote that you gave that

Trump's already

flagging up the fact that they're willing to do it. There being, of course, the Ukrainians.

And President Zelensky's office immediately endorsed Trump's comments by saying it welcomed them as

part of the victory plan that President Zelensky presented to President Trump in the fall.

So obviously,

...