Much attention has been drawn to the proposed rare earths deal the Trump administration has been attempting to negotiate with the Kiev regime (or “raw earth,” as Trump himself has sometimes put it).

At the outset, Zelensky proposed that the US help the Ukraine develop Ukrainian rare earth deposits. To further his claim that there are plentiful rare earths hiding under Ukrainian dirt, Zelensky produced a paper map of the Ukraine with rare earth deposits delicately shaded in using color pencils.

This map, it turned out, was from a very old Soviet-era geological survey. Russian geologists were ordered to go look for rare earths and, lo and behold, they found them. Does this mean that these deposits are economically viable? No, not at all! It just means that trace amounts of rare earth elements can be found in the dirt of a particular region at perhaps a 1 part per million level, equating to 1 gram of rare earths for each tonne of dirt or rock excavated, ground, sifted and subjected to a chemical extraction process. But the useful concentration could be a lot less and the rock in question is in some questions granite, which is not an easy material to grind into a fine powder.

What’s more, one of the more reasonable deposits — of lithium — is on what is now Russian territory and working out a deal to exploit them with the Ukrainians is like asking a bear to return an umbrella which you seem to have forgotten in his den on a previous hike through the woods. Sure, the Ukrainians and the Americans don’t recognize this territory as Russian, but that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t get mauled to death if they blundered into it in search of some lithium.

Bear metaphors aside, sacred Russian blood has been spilled in defense of that land, and this makes the land sacred to the Russians. If the expression “sacred land” doesn’t make any sense to you, then just take out a world map, find Russia on it (which is not at all hard!) and appreciate it for its awesome size. It stands to reason that Russia didn’t get that big because the Russians played nice with those who tried to take any of their land away from them. Therefore, take it as read that it doesn’t matter whether or not you think that a particular piece of land belongs to Russia; all that matters is that the Russians think it does.

In any case, the Americans took Zelensky’s bait and last month Zelensky flew to Washington for a signing ceremony of a “raw earth” deal with Trump. The White House announced that all was ready for the signing, but then Zelensky acted like an ass during the pre-signing press conference in the Oval Office and got unceremoniously thrown out of the White House. It was a spectacular scandal. Zelensky’s handlers promptly whisked him off to London, where his European fluffers, so grateful for his services as Biden’s money laundry attendant, fluffed his deflated ego back to its usual inordinate size and he has been acting like an ass ever since.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration, perhaps after consulting with Putin, decided to follow Putin’s usual negotiating strategy. Putin’s first offer is always the best. If it is rebuffed, then the next offer is considerably worse. If that is rebuffed too, then progressively worse offers lead to the inevitable one-clause deal: you do precisely as you are told. If that is likewise unacceptable, then — bang! — you’re dead. Trump has then tried something similar, and the current draft of the “raw earth” deal includes not just the supposedly magic dirt but also ports, pipelines, nuclear power plants and much else, all to be administered by an American-controlled board of directors until Ukrainian war debts (which is what Trump thinks they are) have been fully repaid. Essentially, it would put the former Ukraine under American colonial administration for an indefinite period of time.

There are several problems with this proposed deal. First, it is makes it seem as if a war has been fought between the US and the Ukraine, which the Ukraine has lost, whereas it was the US that has fought and lost a proxy conflict against Russia, with the Ukraine as nothing more than a proxy that provided its territory as the battle ground and its men as cannon fodder. Second, the deal is similar to the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I, which saddled Germany with onerous war reparations — except significantly worse — making it hugely humiliating. A deal that forces the Ukraine to capitulate to the US is politically unpalatable to the Kiev regime and has already scandalized it to the point where Zelensky cannot possibly sign it without jeopardizing his own security right there in Kiev. The deal offends his two key contingencies: the Ukrainian oligarchs (who own much of that over which Trump wants to claim dominion) and the Ukrainian Nazi battalions (who see the deal as capitulation in a war which they, rather insanely, still think that they can somehow win).

Zelensky’s refusal to sign the deal is the excuse Trump needs to cut off all aid to the recalcitrant, ungrateful, deadbeat Ukraine. This may, in fact, be the actual reason behind the entire “raw earth” clown act, because there are a couple more problems with it: the claim of debt and the claim of authority to sign are both invalid.

The claim of debt rests on the factually unsupported argument that the billions of dollars of aid which the Biden administration had sent to the Kiev regime, much of which was then stolen or laundered, quite a bit of it winding its way into the coffers of the US Democratic party, was lent rather than given away freely. Usually, when someone shows up, claiming that you owe him something, failure to produce the promissory note — a document bearing the borrower’s signature and specifying the terms of repayment — settles the issue. In this case, there is no promissory note, so no debt.

The claim of authority to sign rests on the legally invalid argument that Zelensky and his administration form the actual, bona fide, Ukrainian government in accordance with the terms spelled out in the Ukrainian constitution. Zelensky’s presidential term expired last May and with it the authority of everyone whom he has appointed, such as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who, in accordance with the Ukrainian constitution, is the one official who is authorized to sign international treaties, such as the one the Trump administration is proposing. In fact, there is nobody in Kiev who can sign that “raw earth” agreement in a way that would then not be disputed and found to be invalid.

Of course, if the US decides that having a Ukrainian federal government is altogether unnecessary, then it doesn’t matter who signs it for the Ukrainian side, just as it doesn’t much matter who signs the articles of capitulation for the losing side in a war. The signing of the articles of unconditional surrender is more of a public humiliation ritual than a legal proceeding and the signatory could be Emperor Hirohito or Mickey Mouse — who cares? The point is that nobody on the vanquished side has the ability to dispute it, as may very well be the case with the Ukrainians, although some combination of Ukrainian Nazis and oligarchs could cause the world’s biggest stink — big enough to envelop all of Europe and even reach America’s shores.

Another tiny problem is that articles of unconditional surrender are generally written in favor of the winning side, not the losing side. But it turns out that this war (or Special Military Operation, if you are Russian) was not at all between the former Ukraine and Russia. All along, so now claims the New York Times, it was a proxy war between Russia on the one side and the United States on the other. The Ukrainians just provided its men as the cannon fodder and its territory as the battle ground while the Americans paid the salaries of the Kiev regime, all the way to the regional administrations, provided the weapons, the intelligence and the targeting and generally controlled the entire order of battle. And, in spite of the NYT’s efforts to pin the blame on the Ukrainians, it is the Americans who have lost. What does the proxy owe to the loser in a proxy conflict? That’s right, absolutely nothing.

I do not wish to suggest that what the New York Times published is anything other than a hastily slapped together bit of fiction designed to whitewash the role of the Biden administration. According to the NYT’s Democrat sycophants, it was a good, just war to produce a strategic defeat of Russia and its tyrant Putin. But it didn’t go according to plan because of the Ukrainians, who are corrupt, feckless and looked for propaganda victories instead of real, military ones. The Americans provided all of the targeting information (euphemistically calling Russian targets “points of interest”) and are therefore complicit in a multitude of war crimes because many of these points of interest were schools, hospitals, shopping centers and other civilian targets. Therefore, if anyone owes anyone anything, it is the Americans who must pay war reparations to Russia. But that’s a side point; more importantly, none of what they have tried has actually worked and now Russia is going to be victorious and triumphant.

If this was all along a proxy war between the US and Russia, then why is the Trump administration insisting that Russia agree to a cease fire with the Ukraine rather than with its own magnificent self? Factual or not, the NYT article was a wind gust powerful enough to blow away the fig leaf of proxy war, causing us to wonder at the flaccid inadequacy of what’s been hiding underneath it. And what it has been obscuring was, of all things, the inability of the Americans to control the Ukrainians.

To wit, the 30-day cease fire on which Trump insisted has been whittled down to just the cessation of attacks on energy infrastructure on both sides. The Russians immediately upheld this commitment, even to the point of shooting down some of their own drone aircraft that were already in the air and on the way to blowing up some of the remaining Ukrainian energy facilities. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, have ignored the cease fire and have continued their mostly ineffectual efforts to attack energy facilities on the Russian side, including, comically enough, ones owned by American companies! Clearly, either Trump doesn’t control the Ukrainians, or he doesn’t control his own people who tell the Ukrainians what they can or cannot do.

The inevitable conclusion of all this is that the Trump administration has no good options. It cannot force the Ukrainians to sign the onerous “raw earth” deal and if it did the deal would be invalid unless the Ukrainians capitulated to the Americans and accepted American colonial administration. And what a wonderful colony it would be!

• The infrastructure hasn’t been updated since the Soviet times and is beyond decrepit.

• The people are zombified by Ukrainian propaganda to the point of acting like members of a suicide cult.

• Almost half of the population has fled already and most of the rest will flee the moment the borders are open again (which they will be once the central government falls apart)

• And, to top it all off, there will be a very large army of very well armed, battle-hardened Nazis, who will be extremely angry at what has happened and will immediately pick a fight with anyone who tries to invade what they see as their turf, starting with the American colonial administration, should an attempt be made to form such an unhappy entity.

Perhaps Trump would want to wash his hands of the entire Ukraine mess, calling it “Biden’s problem” and sell his “raw earth” deal to the Russians for a notional dollar? Well, that wouldn’t work either, for two excellent reasons. First, why should Russia burden itself with a huge, mostly destroyed and depopulated land, most of its remaining population zombified, hostile, treacherous, afflicted with inchoate grievances going back to the Jurassic and insisting on speaking a language that is almost but not quite Russian? Why not just make sure that they pose no risk to Russia and let them fester for a century or two (as they had done a couple of times before)? The Russians would certainly try to save as many Ukrainian souls as they can — but only one soul at a time, and that only once they start coming out of the trenches in droves, hands in the air; only then might the healing begin.

Russia already has most of what it wanted: five key industrial and agricultural regions peopled by resolute Russians; a land route to Crimea; a mother lode of natural resources; and a defensible boundary of the mighty Dniepr River. In theory, Russia could also benefit from absorbing Odessa and forming a land bridge to Transnistria and Gaugazia, which are both Russian-speaking and have been clamoring for Russian attention for the last 35 years. But these are minor details; the important point is that Russia has already secured a great victory — not over the Ukraine, since that was, it now turns out, just a proxy — but over the whole of the West!

Russia now has the best and the most highly trained army on the planet, equipped with modern, battle-tested weapons, and a hugely profitable military-industrial complex that is the envy of the world. To keep Europe pacified, Russian cavalry won’t have to ride into Paris and Russian tanks won’t have to roll into Berlin. These little puppies have already whipped themselves and will be hiding under the bed for the next few decades. The pathetic whimpering coming out of Paris, London and Brussels is music to Russian ears.

What the US now has, at least on paper and in draft form, is a toxic asset called “exclusive economic rights to the former Ukraine.” It isn’t going to be worth anywhere near the $150 billion or the $500 billion that Trump has variously claimed. In fact, it could turn out to be extremely unprofitable: far too hot for the Americans to handle, what with all the rabid Nazis running around, mad as hell after their humiliation, and a humanitarian disaster for the ever-dwindling remaining population. Politically, Trump cannot afford to do another Afghanistan and just cut and run like Biden did.

Trump’s efforts to put pressure on the Russians will fail because all that can do is further undermine the position of the US dollar in international trade. His attempts at negotiation with the Russians are not working because the American delegation can’t give a good answer even to the first, perfectly reasonable question: “Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in our neighborhood?” Trump, you see, is the king of bullshit, but the Russians don’t do bullshit. Russia is next door to the Ukraine while America is across the ocean from it; can you spot the difference? In short, it’s all a travesty.

Meanwhile, Trump is quickly running out of options:

• He has no choice but to try to scuttle the ship of Globalism before the globalists scuttle the ship of America. If you have any doubts about this, just look at the US trade balance with the rest of the world; it tells the whole story. All that fake money, which has to be printed to cover the trade imbalance, sloshes back into the US economy. As a result, more and more Americans can’t afford to pay rent and are sleeping in cars or roadside tents. The globalists are parasites that infest America and are gradually killing it. Never mind making America great again; just keeping it from collapsing would at this point be a tall order.

• Throwing up trade barriers is a good first step, but doing so risks sending the American economy into a deep state of shock from which it may never recover. The US no longer has the trained and disciplined workforce needed to execute a program of import replacement. The managerial class is fully stocked with financial managers and speculators. The industrialists are all gone and there is no one left to rebuild industry. Over 80% of the US economy is services, geared for consumption, not production, and turning this situation around, even if that is something that could be done, would take several decades, which the US does not have.

• Trump also has to slash the federal government, but it resists being slashed at every level — bureaucratic, legislative and judicial. The permanent civil service does its best to thwart his every effort at reform. The legislature has a very slim majority in his favor but with half the legislators working hard to make him fail, major legislative breakthroughs are highly unlikely. And the American judiciary is a law unto itself — a fractal of competing political interests that can kill any initiative from the executive branch through boondoggling and foot-dragging. The US federal government is not a reformable system.

• He has to cut defense spending by a huge amount, but that would destroy his power base, nor does he doesn’t have the votes to make it happen. Even if he did have the votes, he would not have the money: evacuating and liquidating all of the overseas military bases would require more money, not less. Weapons programs need to be mercilessly slaughtered and this would cause outrage among the senators and congressmen whose states and districts benefit from these programs, destroying his already very slim legislative majority.

• Trump has to cut off the rest of the world from the dollar printing press, but he doesn’t control the Federal Reserve, which is a front for a consortium of private banks, all of them globalist. He would very much like to cut Europe loose, but the fact remains that the US dollar and the euro are Siamese twin currencies joined at the hip: for every euro the European Central Bank sees it fit to print, a dollar has to be emitted to soak up the excess, or the imbalance would cause the entire financial system to become unstable and the flow of funds to seize up. It is a perverse relationship that Trump has no authority to break off.

In short, Trump is screwed. To do his job, he would have to become a dictator, but he is only the president of the second-most corrupt republic in the history of the world (the most corrupt is the Ukraine). The end of his magical 100 first days in office is fast approaching and so far he has accomplished precisely nothing. Yes, he has made a huge amount of noise in the media and Elon Musk, acting on his behalf, did manage to kill USAID, Voice of America, a few million already dead Social Security recipients and a few other relatively tiny parasitic entities, but that’s not nearly enough to avert fiscal catastrophe.

On top of everything, he will have “Trump’s Ukraine,” as a matching set with “Biden’s Afghanistan.” Either that, or he will end up as the proud owner and proprietor of the world’s most toxic asset. He may end up trying to sell it to Putin for one dollar, but I doubt that Putin would accept because, as I mentioned, Russia has already won almost everything it wants through the valor of its soldiers on the field of battle and would probably find acquiring the rest through some sort of shady American real estate deal beneath its dignity and not in Russia’s national interest.