When you read about the mineral agreement at the heart of negotiations between the U.S. and Ukraine, you might be left with the impression that the deal, in which the U.S. would gain the rights to a stream of profits from the sale of Ukrainian minerals—everything from rare earths and lithium to other newly mined resources—is totally unprecedented.
Some frame this as a form of expropriation or extortion, imperial in its scope. Others ask questions along the lines of: “Would Franklin D. Roosevelt ever have asked something like this of Churchill?!”
To which the answer is: very possibly, yes.
We know as much because something quite similar did happen before. So let’s travel back in time to early 1941—Britain’s darkest hour. As most of the continent succumbed to Hitler and Churchill clung doggedly on, a handful of men gathered in the White House to discuss what they could expect to plunder from the UK in exchange for economic support.