Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finally agreed to the "Golden Parachute" US President Donald J. Trump offered him as a first step to have Russian President Vladimir Putin negotiate a ceasefire to the war he began three years ago, the meeting on February 28 between Trump and Zelensky -- as the world, to its shock, saw on television -- collapsed.
Trump seems to have been anticipating a signing ceremony; Zelensky seems to have been anticipating receiving assurances of greater security. Trump's ultimate message apparently was: a Trump final offer is a Trump final offer.
Trump was gracious enough to offer Zelensky the opportunity to return if he changed his mind -- as his did on March 4. Trump also in the did not preclude the possibility that the US would consider coming to Europe's military assistance should it be needed at some future time.
For a long time, it was difficult to express doubts about Ukraine's success without immediately being branded a "Putinist". It was as if the horror of war forced everyone to take sides: only "Putinists" and "Slava Ukraini" remained.
Britain's daily Telegraph, which is usually more discerning, labeled the US demand for repayment of the hundreds of billions invested in war matériel for Ukraine as a "stranglehold."
The Telegraph compared it to the reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I -- an analogy all the more shocking, they argued, because Ukraine is the victim, not the aggressor.
Trump has asked that Ukraine repay the enormous sums advanced by the United States -- especially after he found out that the money given to Ukraine by European countries had been loans, not grants. Trump proposed a deal whereby the US would help to develop Ukraine's minerals, such as lithium and titanium, and help to develop Ukraine's infrastructure, and suggested that such a business collaboration would serve as an adequate deterrence against renewed Russian aggression, making the security guarantees Zelensky was seeking unnecessary, at least at least during his tenure.
Reports suggest the US would own 50% of these assets or their revenues, as a repayment to US taxpayers for past aid. Zelensky said that he was open to investment but needed stronger security guarantees.
Critics of Trump called his request exploitative, akin to a colonial resource-grab, while supporters seemed to see it as a potential win-win if US investment would help to rebuild Ukraine's economy – a kind of new "Marshall Plan." Details have not yet been confirmed.
The true analogy is with the assistance granted by the United States to the United Kingdom during World War II: the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. Under Lend-Lease, the US provided Britain with goods valued at approximately $31.4 billion (in 1940s dollars) over the course of the war. This figure represents the total value of aid shipped to Britain, including everything from military equipment like ships, aircraft and tanks, to civilian necessities like food and oil. Adjusted for inflation to today's dollars (as of February 2025), this amount equates to roughly $550 billion.
This amount was then rolled into the broader Anglo-American Loan Agreement of 1946, with a substantial rebate. Alongside settling Lend-Lease, the US extended a new $3.75 billion loan at 2% interest to help Britain's postwar recovery, bringing the total package to $4.4 billion (plus Canada's separate $1.19 billion loan). The UK began repaying this combined sum in 1950, with payments stretching over decades. The final installment —covering both the Lend-Lease settlement and the postwar loan — was paid off on December 29, 2006, when Britain sent its last check of about $83 million to the US Treasury.
In reality, a Ukraine-US agreement on debt repayment is assuredly one way to keep America engaged in Ukraine for decades to come — and thus at least a non-military security guarantee. One does not allow a debtor owing $300 billion to be crushed. A long-term debt repayment agreement between Ukraine and the United States could serve as a powerful mechanism to ensure sustained American engagement in Ukraine's security. Financial obligations of such magnitude — potentially in the hundreds of billions — create an inherent incentive for the creditor to protect the debtor from existential threats. No country, one hopes, allows a strategic partner with outstanding debts of that scale to be destabilized or overrun.
What, however, happens once the debt is repaid? Without a lasting strategic framework, financial leverage alone might not be enough to guarantee long-term security. The case of Hong Kong is a sobering precedent: the West was deeply invested in the city's economy, but when communist China asserted control, international businesses largely packed up and left rather than confront Beijing.
For Ukraine, if economic leverage alone is not enough, what structures might be built to ensure that Ukraine's security does not become another Vietnam, Hong Kong or Afghanistan, where outside powers ultimately choose to walk away? According to reports, such questions are to be addressed after a negotiated ceasefire.
In the meantime, the debt would be repaid by a US-Ukraine "partnership" in mining Ukraine's natural resources and rebuilding its economy. At the moment, Trump's unconventional proposal is probably the best offer for Ukraine -- and the only realistic one. It gives the US "skin in the game," enables Trump to have leverage when he approaches Russia, and prevents Putin, at least for a while, from retaking that part of the former Soviet Union.
The Error
Unlike his predecessors, Trump acknowledged that NATO had pledged not to expand beyond East Germany. For the past three years, merely stating this fact had led to being labeled a "Putinist," an attempt at permanent discreditation. The facts, however, are clear: James Baker, Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush, made an unambiguous public commitment, confirmed by NATO's secretary-general himself. To be clear: these declarations do not have the status of a treaty or international law, but they were commitments, at best a kind of unilateral undertaking.
On the other hand, so was the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Russia, the United States and Ukraine agreed that Ukraine's borders would be respected in exchange for giving up the nuclear weapons it had at the time. Both Russia and the US failed to uphold their part of the agreement.
NATO, as may have postulated, does not really seem to be the problem. Russia already has hundreds of miles of peaceful borders with NATO countries, including the Baltic states, and did not kick up a fuss when Finland joined NATO last year. The only country where joining NATO ostensibly appears to be a problem is Ukraine. Perhaps this exception should be regarded as a flashing red light, warning that Putin still might have his eye on Ukraine for its minerals, agricultural land and outlet on the Black Sea.
As long as Ukraine is not in NATO, Putin might regards it as fair game. As for the potential deal with Trump, it might well appear to Putin that some of Ukraine is better than none of Ukraine -- especially after already having successfully captured all of Crimea and a good chunk of Georgia. It also might help to remember that, for better or worse, Putin will not be around forever.
What appears to terrify Putin the most is a democracy 250 miles from Moscow -- where people inside Russia might see up close what it is like to live in a free society.
Towards a Yalta?
The main risk for Europe is that the Ukraine crisis formalizes its geopolitical downgrade. Europe lacks the resources to challenge the United States and can only confront Russia due to NATO's support. In short, Europe does not count. So far, at least, Europe has not wanted to pay, and has not wanted to fight.
Trump has been a supporter of NATO but not as its guarantor. His worldview at the moment is that he rejects war, except as a last resort. To him, it seems, America's true rival in the 21st century is not Europe, or Russia, and certainly not the amorphous, inconsistent entity known as the BRICs. It is China. To counter this threat, Trump needs a cooperative Europe that finances more of its own defense.
Russia may be an impoverished empire but it still thinks of itself as an impoverished one. It flexes its influence -- based on oil and nuclear weapons -- and power beyond its borders, but primarily when its economy is stable and flush with resources. When Russia is financially strained or "broke," its imperial ambitions take a backseat.
It was the Biden administration's energy policies that bolstered Russia's economic position, and actually provided the funds that fueled its military actions, especially the invasion of Ukraine. Biden's restrictions on domestic energy production in the US and a shift away from energy independence drove up global oil and gas prices, filling the coffers of Russia, which relies on energy exports.
Russia does not want NATO a stone's throw from Moscow, just as the United States did not want Soviet missiles in Cuba. The United States, nevertheless, does not go around invading other countries; Russia does. It is no secret, even to Trump, that Russia is the aggressor here, and probably determined to keep acting that way.
In the Caribbean, near the US, are islands that belong to France, the Netherlands and the UK -- and no one loses sleep over them. Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, on the other hand, have been acting as predators. It is not just that they flex their muscles; they act as if they expect the West to give them a pass to overthrow it without any consequences. The US is not out to conquer Asia, but Russia, China, Iran and North Korea seems hell-bent on carving out their empires one aggressive move at a time.
Today, three military powers dominate the world: China, Russia and the United States. Europe, if not on the list, has only itself to blame. Economically on par with the US until the year 2000, the old continent has since succumbed to a morbid environmentalist fantasy—the "Zero-Carbon Society," a totalitarian myth for which the European Union sacrificed everything: the economy, citizens' well-being, freedom of speech, and perhaps eventually its culture and democratic form of government.
Consider this: the average European pays four times more for home heating than the average American. Why? Because in Europe, fracking for gas is banned, oil is despised, electricity is dependent on wind turbines and solar panels, and perfectly functional nuclear reactors are being decommissioned. Now Russia is trying to repair the Nord Stream II gas pipeline so that Europe can depend on Putin. Good luck with that.
Trump has the ambition, the means, and the momentum for a new Yalta. The Russians will be only too happy to return to the negotiating table. Cursing and shivering, the Europeans will be of enormous help.
Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain), philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain) and PhD in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an entrepreneur, CEO of a European private education group and director of PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green Reich (2020).
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