Neocolonial mineral extraction in Ukraine: How US-Ukrainian deals replicate 20th-century resource wars under 'green transition' guise
Original framing: “US-Ukrainian investment fund seals first critical minerals deal - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
This deal echoes the 20th-century scramble for African minerals, where Western powers and corporations exploited colonial-era infrastructure and local conflicts to secure resources. The Congo Free State’s brutal extraction of rubber and minerals under Leopold II, or the US-backed coup in Chile to nationalize copper mines, serve as direct precedents. Similarly, the Soviet-era exploitation of Ukrainian mineral deposits—such as the Donbas coal fields—was later repurposed by Western interests post-independence, creating a cycle where geopolitical crises enable corporate access to strategic resources.
The US-Ukrainian critical minerals deal is not an isolated economic transaction but a node in a centuries-old system where geopolitical crises enable corporate access to strategic resources under the guise of 'green transition' or national security.
Historical patterns, from the Congo Free State to Chile’s copper mines, reveal how such deals prioritize Western supply chains over local sovereignty, environmental integrity, and social justice. The framing obscures Indigenous resistance, labor exploitation, and the ecological costs of extraction, while the 'trickster' lens exposes the absurdity of treating land as a commodity while masking the true beneficiaries—corporations and militarized states. To break this cycle, Ukraine must adopt Indigenous-led governance, invest in domestic processing, and enforce corporate accountability, while international partners must move beyond extractive models to support post-colonial economic sovereignty.