Trump Announces Putin’s Approval for Peacekeepers in Ukraine, Pushes Rare Earth Minerals Deal

Feb­ru­ary 24, 2025

In a sur­pris­ing turn of events, Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump marked the third anniver­sary of the war in Ukraine with a social media post announc­ing “major” eco­nom­ic deals in the works with Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin. The announce­ment came dur­ing a high-pro­file meet­ing with French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron at the White House, where the two lead­ers dis­cussed Ukraine, Euro­pean secu­ri­ty, and the future of US-France rela­tions.

Putin’s Approval for Peacekeepers in Ukraine

Pres­i­dent Trump revealed that Putin has giv­en his approval for Euro­pean peace­keep­ers to enter Ukraine once a peace deal is reached. This devel­op­ment could sig­nal a poten­tial shift in the ongo­ing con­flict, which has dev­as­tat­ed the region for three years. How­ev­er, Macron clar­i­fied that any Euro­pean peace­keep­ing forces “would not be on the front lines” but would instead focus on main­tain­ing a cease­fire.

“They would not be part of any con­flict,” Macron empha­sized dur­ing a joint press con­fer­ence with Trump. The French pres­i­dent also praised Ukraine for defend­ing Europe’s “col­lec­tive secu­ri­ty,” under­scor­ing the impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion in resolv­ing the cri­sis.

Trump’s Push for Rare Earth Minerals Deal

In addi­tion to dis­cussing peace­keep­ing efforts, Trump reit­er­at­ed his push for Ukraine to grant the US access to its rare earth min­er­als in exchange for secu­ri­ty aid. Rare earth min­er­als are crit­i­cal for man­u­fac­tur­ing advanced tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing elec­tron­ics and renew­able ener­gy sys­tems. Trump framed the pro­posed deal as a win-win for both nations, while Macron expressed sup­port for an agree­ment involv­ing “very strong Amer­i­can involve­ment.”

This pro­pos­al has sparked debate, with crit­ics ques­tion­ing the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of tying secu­ri­ty aid to resource extrac­tion. How­ev­er, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion has defend­ed the move as a strate­gic effort to secure vital resources for the US econ­o­my.

White House Declares Victory Over The Associated Press

In a sep­a­rate devel­op­ment, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion cel­e­brat­ed a court deci­sion deny­ing The Asso­ci­at­ed Press (AP) a tem­po­rary injunc­tion to rejoin the White House press pool. The admin­is­tra­tion had barred the news agency over its refusal to change the name “Gulf of Mex­i­co” to “Gulf of Amer­i­ca” in its report­ing.

The White House framed the rul­ing as a vic­to­ry, stat­ing, “As we have said from the begin­ning, ask­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States ques­tions in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One is a priv­i­lege grant­ed to jour­nal­ists, not a legal right.” The admin­is­tra­tion also accused the AP of spread­ing “lies” and reit­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to hold­ing the media account­able.

The AP, how­ev­er, has defend­ed its edi­to­r­i­al choic­es, argu­ing that its style guide­lines are designed for an inter­na­tion­al audi­ence. The news agency has also raised con­cerns about the administration’s attempt to lever­age media access over word choice, call­ing it a vio­la­tion of free speech rights.

Federal Workers Told to Ignore Musk’s Email Demand

In anoth­er head­line-mak­ing move, the Office of Per­son­nel Man­age­ment (OPM) instruct­ed fed­er­al employ­ees to dis­re­gard an email from Elon Musk demand­ing they sum­ma­rize their achieve­ments from the pre­vi­ous week. Musk, a Trump ally tasked with over­haul­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, had threat­ened to fire employ­ees who failed to com­ply by the Mon­day night dead­line.

The OPM’s announce­ment marked a rare pub­lic break between the Trump admin­is­tra­tion and Musk, who has been lead­ing efforts to down­size the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Despite the OPM’s guid­ance, Musk dou­bled down on his demand, warn­ing on social media that non­com­pli­ance would result in job loss.

Looking Ahead

As Pres­i­dent Trump’s sec­ond term con­tin­ues, his administration’s approach to for­eign pol­i­cy, media rela­tions, and gov­ern­ment reform remains as con­tro­ver­sial as ever. The announce­ment of poten­tial peace­keep­ing efforts in Ukraine offers a glim­mer of hope for resolv­ing the con­flict, but ques­tions linger about the broad­er impli­ca­tions of Trump’s pro­posed deals with Rus­sia and Ukraine.

Mean­while, the administration’s ongo­ing bat­tles with the media and its han­dling of fed­er­al employ­ees under­score the chal­lenges of bal­anc­ing trans­paren­cy, account­abil­i­ty, and free speech in a deeply polar­ized polit­i­cal cli­mate.

Stay tuned for more updates as these sto­ries devel­op.