What is USAID, the foreign assistance agency Trump wants to *SHUT DOWN*?!

President Donald Trump says he wants access to Ukraine’s bonanza of rare earth and critical minerals in exchange for the billions of dollars in military aid Washington has been supplying to Kyiv.

It’s an idea previously suggested by Republican senators and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who sought to appeal to Trump’s dealmaker persona as a way of keeping alive Washington’s support of Kyiv.

“We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earth and other things,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “I want security of the rare earth, and they’re willing to do it.”

As well as being a global breadbasket — Ukraine is a huge supplier of wheat and other agricultural commodities — the country also has a rich seam of rare earth and critical minerals.

Elements such as lithium, gallium and neodymium are crucial in producing a vast range of technologies that include electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and cutting-edge military hardware. As such, the U.S. and China among others have increasingly coveted them.