MINERALS DEAL MORPHS INTO INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP’: When it came time to announce the signing of a deal months in the making that was touted as giving the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, the word “minerals” was not mentioned. 

Instead, the agreement established a “U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund,” which was described as an “economic partnership” in which the two countries would “work collaboratively” to “accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery,” according to a Treasury Department statement.