Ukraine Awards Major Lithium Project to Investors With Links to Trump
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/world/europe/trump-lauder-ukraine-lithium.html
The winning consortium is closely connected to the Trump administration. It includes #Ronald_Lauder, a cosmetics heir who has known Mr. Trump since college and planted the idea in his mind of buying resource-rich Greenland. The other investor is TechMet, an energy firm partly owned by a U.S. government investment agency created during Mr. Trump’s first term.
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Last spring, Kyiv signed a deal granting the United States a stake in its mineral resources, a move that was widely seen as an effort by Kyiv to lock in American support through business ties.
The agreement created a joint U.S.-Ukraine fund to invest in future natural resource projects. Ukrainian officials have since sought to show they can deliver results and pitched the lithium field that was ultimately awarded to Mr. Lauder and TechMet as a potential pilot project under the deal.
The deposit, known as the #Dobra #lithium field, in central #Ukraine, is one of the country’s largest reserves of lithium, a key component for technologies such as electric batteries. It will be developed under a production-sharing contract that allows investors to extract minerals in exchange for sharing output with the Ukrainian government.
Under the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal, half of the revenue the Ukrainian government receives from the Dobra lithium field will be directed to the joint investment fund.
Trump ally who inspired Greenland purchase idea quietly invests in Greenlandic companies
▻https://www.arctictoday.com/trump-ally-who-inspired-greenland-purchase-idea-quietly-invests-in-gree
Ronald Lauder, the billionaire Estée Lauder heir who, according to former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, first put the idea of “buying” #Greenland into Donald Trump’s mind, has quietly taken ownership stakes in Greenlandic companies. The revelations come from a major investigation by the Danish newspaper Politiken.
Lauder even offered to act as an intermediary with Denmark when Trump began exploring the idea; a notion that triggered a diplomatic rift in 2019 and later shaped Trump’s revived Arctic ambitions when he returned to office in 2025.
Now Politiken reports that Lauder, at age 81, has begun investing directly in Greenland.
According to Politiken, Lauder is a participant in Greenland Development Partners, a Delaware-registered investor consortium that has bought into Greenland Investment Group — a company with ambitions that stretch well beyond consumer products.
Greenland Investment Group has expressed interest in bidding for a major hydropower project at Lake Tasersiaq, Greenland’s largest lake. The project is envisioned as the energy source for a future aluminum smelter and, according to company projections, could markedly increase the island’s export revenues and boost the territory’s public finances.
The company is chaired by Josette Sheeran, the former U.S. deputy secretary of state under Condoleezza Rice and former head of the UN World Food Programme. Sheeran also leads the investor group’s Greenland portfolio more broadly.
Ronald Lauder
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Lauder
Le 6 février 2013, il est décoré de la Légion d’honneur par François Hollande, qui salue l’"homme de paix, de culture et d’engagement". Le 3 juin 2022, le président Emmanuel Macron l’élève au grade de commandeur.