The United States and Ukraine on Wednesday signed a minerals deal after a two-month delay, in what President Donald Trump’s administration called a new form of US commitment to Kyiv after the end of military aid.Ukraine said it secured key interests after protracted negotiations, including full sovereignty over its own rare earths, which are vital for new technologies and largely untapped.Trump had initially demanded rights to Ukraine’s mineral wealth as compensation for US weapons sent under former president Joe Biden after Russia invaded just over three years ago.After initial hesitation, Ukraine has accepted a minerals accord as a way to secure long-term investment by the United States, as Trump tries to drastically scale back US security commitments around the world.Announcing the deal in Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it showed “both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.””This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Bessent said.”And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”The Treasury statement notably mentioned Russia’s “full-scale invasion” of Ukraine — diverging from the Trump administration’s usual formulation of a “conflict” for which Kyiv bears a large degree of responsibility.In Kyiv, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said the agreement was “good, equal and beneficial.”Shmygal said the two countries would establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund with each side having equal voting rights and Ukraine would retain “full control over its subsoil, infrastructure and natural resources.”Meeting a key concern for Kyiv, he said Ukraine would not be asked to pay back any “debt” for billions of dollars in US support since Russia invaded in February 2022.”The fund’s profits will be reinvested exclusively in Ukraine,” he said.Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said the deal would finance mineral and oil and gas projects as well as “related infrastructure or processing.”Trump had originally sought $500 billion in mineral wealth — around four times what the United States has contributed to Ukraine since the war.- US presence against ‘bad actors’ -Trump has balked at offering security guarantees to Ukraine and has rejected its aspiration to join NATO.But he said on Wednesday that a US presence on the ground would benefit Ukraine.”The American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting.Speaking later at a town hall with NewsNation, Trump said he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a recent meeting at the Vatican that signing the deal  would be a “very good thing” because “Russia is much bigger and much stronger.”Asked whether the minerals deal is going to “inhibit” Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Trump said “well, it could.”Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday threatened giving up on mediation unless the two sides come forward with “concrete proposals.”Since starting his second term, Trump has pressed for a settlement in which Ukraine would give up some territory seized by Russia, which has rejected US-backed overtures for a ceasefire of at least 30 days.Backed by the international community, Zelensky has ruled out any formal concession to Russia of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula seized in 2014.But Zelensky has taken care to voice support for Trump’s diplomacy after a disastrous February 28 White House meeting where Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated him for allegedly being ungrateful for US assistance.Calling the agreement “Trump’s extortion of Ukraine deal,” US Congressman Gregory Meeks, ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump should now focus his efforts on pressuring Putin rather than “fixating” on Zelensky and Ukraine.Ukraine holds some five percent of the world’s mineral resources and rare earths, according to various estimates. But work has not yet started on tapping many of the resources and many sites are in territory now controlled by Russian forces.Notably, Ukraine has around 20 percent of the world’s graphite, an essential material for electric batteries, according to France’s Bureau of Geological and Mining Research. Ukraine is also a major producer of manganese and titanium, and says it possesses the largest lithium deposits in Europe.burs-sct/bfm/cl/sla

A US judge on Wednesday accused Apple of defying an order to loosen its grip on the App Store payment system to the point that criminal charges could be warranted.US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found that Apple “willfully” violated an injunction she issued at trial, with the company instead creating new barriers to competition with the App Store and even lying to the court in the process.”That it thought this court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation,” Gonzalez Rogers said in an order allowing Epic Games to enforce the injunction against Apple.”As always, the cover-up made it worse. For this court, there is no second bite at the apple.”Fortnite-maker Epic launched the case in 2021 aiming to break Apple’s grip on the App Store, accusing the iPhone maker of acting like a monopoly in its shop for digital goods or services.After a trial, Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple’s control of the App Store did not amount to a monopoly, but that it must let developers include links to other online venues for buying content or services.The judge also found at the time that the 30 percent commission Apple charges on App Store sales allowed it “supracompetitive operating margins” that were anticompetitive, according to the injunction.Apple’s response to the trial order included charging a commission on purchases made linking out of its app store, according to the judge.Apple also imposed new barriers and new requirements including “scare screens” to dissuade people from buying digital purchases outside of its App Store, the judge concluded.”In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this court’s injunction,” Gonzalez Rogers said in the ruling.”In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option.”An Apple spokesperson told AFP it strongly disagrees with the judge’s decision and will appeal to a higher court, but plans to comply.”Apple’s 15-30 percent junk fees are now just as dead here in the United States of America as they are in Europe under the Digital Markets Act,” Epic Games chief executive Tim Sweeney said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.Sweeney’s post included a “peace proposal” promising to drop current and future litigation on the matter if Apple extends the court’s “Apple-tax-free framework” worldwide.The judge called on the US Attorney’s office to investigate whether punitive criminal contempt sanctions against Apple are warranted “to punish past misconduct and deter future noncompliance.”

The head of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) on Wednesday criticized US President Donald Trump’s order to fast-track deep-sea mining in the open ocean outside American territorial waters.”No state has the right to unilaterally exploit the mineral resources of the area outside the legal framework established by UNCLOS,” ISA head Leticia Carvalho said in a statement, referring to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.”It is common understanding that this prohibition is binding on all States, including those that have not ratified UNCLOS,” she added.The United States is not a signatory of the convention, which established the ISA in 1982 and says that international waters and its resources are “the common heritage of humankind.”The ISA is scrambling to devise a rulebook for deep-sea mining, balancing its economic potential against warnings of irreversible environmental damage.Washington wants to spearhead mining for mineral-rich nodules in the deepest ocean floor, sidestepping a global effort to regulate such potentially damaging exploration.The Trump administration appears to be relying on an obscure, decades-old law that allows the federal government to issue seabed mining permits in international waters — a move that has sparked international outcry from Paris, Beijing, and beyond.Carvalho said the decision by from the Trump administration was “surprising” given that for more than three decades Washington was a “reliable observer and significant contributor” to ISA work.She said “unilateral action… sets a dangerous precedent that could destabilize the entire system of global ocean governance,” she added.The ISA must both oversee any exploration or mining of coveted resources (such as cobalt, nickel or manganese) in international waters, and protect the marine environment, according to UNCLOS.Carvalho added in her statement that the advantages of adhering to international norms “outweigh the potential risks and challenges associated with unilateral action across the chain, from intergovernmental relations to investment security.”

Six months after defeating Joe Biden, President Donald Trump is back in power but remains obsessed with his White House predecessor, taking every opportunity to blame the man who remains his greatest political bugbear.The country’s GDP fell in the first quarter because of the “overhang” from the Democrat’s presidency, Trump insisted Wednesday on his Truth Social network.Hours later during a cabinet meeting, he denied any link between the economic slowdown and his protectionist trade policies, even though it was essentially due to a surge in imports in anticipation of the Republican’s sweeping tariffs.”This is Biden,” he said of the first-quarter downturn, “and you can even say the next quarter is sort of Biden.”According to a recent count by The New York Times, the brash billionaire has mentioned his predecessor on average six times per day since his January 20 inauguration.Even conservative influencer Dave Portnoy, who was a powerful conduit for anti-Biden rhetoric during last year’s presidential campaign, is tiring of the deflections.”What’s that old expression? Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining?” Portnoy posted on X in response to Trump claiming “This is Biden’s Stock Market.””The stock market is a direct reflection of Trumps 1st 100 days in office,” added Portnoy, who founded digital media company Barstool Sports. “Doesn’t mean it won’t get better… but this is his market not Biden’s.”And yet Trump, whose approval rating has tumbled in recent weeks, blasts Biden relentlessly.On Wednesday, he blamed the Democrat for “destroying our country in so many ways,” described the three-year old conflict between Russia and Ukraine as “Biden’s war,” and even slammed his nemesis for not having cabinet meetings as open as his own.”Trump knows the economy and his foreign policy are in trouble, and he’s looking for a narrative that excuses himself,” Joseph Grieco, a political science professor at Duke University, told AFP.”Biden bashing has worked for him in the past, so it’s not surprising he’d turn to it now,” he said, but added: “This will work for only so long.”During a Tuesday rally in Michigan to mark his first 100 days in office, Trump asked his supporters which of his two Biden smears they preferred: “Crooked Joe or Sleepy Joe?”Trump then offered a boorish critique of his predecessor, as he often did on the campaign trail. “He goes to the beach, right? And he could fall asleep… drooling out of the side of his mouth.”The Washington Post counted roughly 30 Biden references in the lengthy speech.And in a willful rejection of fact, Trump repeated his false claim that the Democrat had stolen his victory in 2020.- ‘The other guy’ -To date, there has been little effective response from the Democratic opposition, and Trump has made sure this time around that he is surrounded exclusively by loyal lieutenants who flatter rather than provoke.So when the president seeks a political punching bag, he rounds on Biden.He has attacked Biden on a range of issues, from high egg prices to strikes against Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, from immigration to paper straws.On social media, legions of Trump-aligned accounts join the fray, hurling jibes at Biden.In March as he promoted Tesla, the company run by his ally Elon Musk, the 78-year-old Trump told reporters at the White House as he emerged from a red vehicle: “You think Biden could get into that car? I don’t think so.”When he was president, Biden adopted quite a different strategy. He often refused to even utter Trump’s name, referring to him as “the other guy.”