Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unexpected admission during a recent CNBC interview while discussing the topic of President Trump's controversial rare earths minerals deal with Ukraine.
Not only did Blinken appear to approve of some kind of rare earth minerals plan which would benefit the US, but disclosed that the Biden administration was working on something similar - albeit he characterized the current White House as having the wrong approach.
"Part of the victory package that [Zelensky] put on the table in the last six months of our administration included us working with them on rare earths, on critical minerals," Blinken told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin in the televised interview. He also described 'frustrations' between the Biden admin and Zelensky government, but said the White House under Biden was unwilling to make these public.
Biden was reportedly seeking direct investments in Ukraine's rare earths sector. To be expected, Blinken slammed the way that Trump is going about putting together a minerals deal, which some critics characterizing it as a big resource grab at a moment Ukraine remains vulnerable and at war.
"What I think we saw put forward in the deal that was proposed was basically a protection racket, without the protection. We want all of this stuff, but you're really not going to get much for it in terms of protection against Russia from us," Blinken emphasized in the comments.
A key caveat of Trump's plan is for Ukraine to reimburse all the assistance the US has provided in the wake of Feb. 2022.
Interestingly Blinken lays out that a minerals plan to 'pay back' America actually originated with Zelensky, albeit in a softer form...
😑 Ukraine offered the US Ukrainian rare earth deal in exchange for military aid, "it was one of his (Zelenskyy's) parts of the Victory Plan,” former US Secretary of State Blinken pic.twitter.com/G8X7vPncz6
— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) April 11, 2025
Zelensky and his European allies have balked at this, and there's been intense haggling over the plan ever since. It seems White House demands have only gotten wider in scope, however.
But Kiev is also in a desperate position, and feels it has to entertain Trump's plan on some level, given that US-supplied weapons and intelligence could be completely cut off once again. Trump earlier ordered a halt to weapons for a matter of a few days, but the arms pipeline has since been back on.
Watch Blinken's full CNBC interview which aired last Thursday below...
