August 15, 2025[1]
Since the end of the Cold War, former communist, East European states were given the opportunity to become full members of a Western-led liberal international order (Ikenberry, 2018). A broad set of countries could pursue the goals of stability, peace, and economic growth by establishing or joining multilateral treaties and liberal organizations, with the benefit of a U.S. security umbrella. While post-Soviet independent Ukraine alternated between pursuing and rejecting closer security and trade relations with the West, a new pro-Western domestic political consensus developed following Russia’s 2014 invasion. Ukraine’s autonomy and self-determination seemed best secured by orienting itself decisively toward the West. The full-scale invasion of 2022 solidified this consensus, as Ukraine struggled to defend its right to exist as a sovereign state against a Russian military assault. However, with President Trump’s weakening commitment to multilateralism and the liberal order that the U.S. helped build and sustain over decades, the autonomy and full sovereignty of Ukraine, even within the Western orbit, is unclear (Zakaria, 2023). The 2025 minerals deal signed between Ukraine and the United States exemplifies Ukraine’s continued vulnerability, and the vulnerability of other East European states, in a post-liberal order, in which a country’s sovereignty may appear to rest upon its perceived usefulness in a great power calculus.
Ukrainian Sovereignty and Transactional U.S. Foreign Policy
Ukraine’s loss of autonomy and the ability to pursue its own destiny as a free society oriented toward Europe was most directly threatened by Russian revanchism. Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has struggled to hold on to its right to self-determination, unable to ensure its national sovereignty without the massive military and financial contributions of NATO countries and their partners around the world. The sacrifices Ukrainians have made to defend life, limb and treasure are extraordinary and impressive, and yet still insufficient to secure their future as self-governing agents. The military and financial contributions by the United States and Europe have helped stall the further loss of territory since the summer of 2022, but have been inadequate for Ukraine to win back the lands taken over by Russia. Despite huge Ukrainian (and Russian) casualties and vast Western support, Ukraine has failed to retake control of its territory with over three and a half years of brutal fighting.
Without question, the Russian invasion is the most direct cause of Ukraine’s inability to safeguard its own future as a sovereign country, aligned with Europe, with a free and open society. That said, a second dynamic undermines Ukraine’s ability to defend its full sovereignty stemming from profound shifts in Washington. Under the Trump regime, America’s commitment to political and economic liberalism is being hollowed out both domestically and internationally. As a result of a shift in government priorities and norms, U.S. foreign policy is now driven by a transactional logic that takes a short-term view of its relationships with partners and allies. This questions the sovereignty and impacts the precarity of countries as diverse as Ukraine, Panama, Greenland, and Canada. The economic impacts of this massive shift in Washington are being felt directly and immediately with the emergence of trade wars, targeting even the closest of American allies and neighbors.
For Ukraine, the White House has been reimagining the country’s place within an “America First” agenda. In the narrowest sense, the Trump administration is reconsidering what the US can gain from its relationship to Ukraine, especially relative to the possible benefits associated with normalized relations with Russia. U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia bounces from one side to the other, with even President Trump’s closest advisors uncertain of how U.S. foreign policy will unfold. The reconsideration of American interests in this narrower and more transactional mindset was especially clearly reflected in the minerals deal, signed on April 30, 2025 (known formally as “The Establishment of a United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund”) (European Pravda, 2025).
In order to help win future US military support, Ukraine signed away potentially half of the country’s new revenue streams from its natural wealth in rare earths, minerals, metals, as well as hydrocarbons to American companies. According to this deal, any future U.S. military assistance to Ukraine (e.g. transfers of ammunition, hardware, costs of training, intelligence, etc.) will count towards the American contribution to a shared investment fund, which entitles America to up to half of these future revenue streams. As a token of good faith, upon signing of the agreement, Washington approved the sale of $50 million in weapons to Ukraine (Baskaran & Schwartz, 2025).
When the agreement was signed on April 30, 2025, Ukrainian Prime Minister Svyrydenko emphasized that it was founded on “equal partnership” and structure on a “50/50 basis” in contrast to the February draft, which had sought sweeping control over Ukraine’s natural resources (Miller & Politi, 2025). In effect the deal establishes a jointly managed “U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund” intended to promote development across key sectors of Ukraine’s economy by attracting foreign capital. The scope of the program includes not only mineral deposits and hydrocarbons, but also energy infrastructure, ports, and a range of public and private enterprises. The Ukrainian Geological Survey reports that the county holds significant undeveloped reserves on critical minerals, like titanium, lithium, graphite, nickel, and cobalt (Crebo-Rediker, 2025), crucial for manufacturing among other technologies, state of the art weapons systems. (Abdurasulov, 2025).
The terms of the agreement state that Ukraine must remit 50 percent of future royalties earned from new subsoil licenses for critical minerals, oil, and gas into the joint fund (Crebo-Rediker 2025; Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 2025, Art. VI, Sec. 3). This transfer must pass through a designated special fund within Ukraine’s state budget and channeled through the national agency responsible for transferring revenues to the partnership (Art. VI, Sec. 4). Existing revenues from state-owned firms, like Naftogaz and Ukrnafta, are explicitly excluded, making the fund contingent upon future extractive projects. Additionally, the agreement stipulates that any new U.S. military aid, including weapons transfers, intelligence and training support, is to be treated as an equity contribution (Art. VI, Sec. 5).
Any newly issued license for subsoil use must include a provision allowing the U.S. partner or its designee, to negotiate offtake rights for critical raw materials based on market terms, giving the U.S. first access to these negotiations (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 2025, Art. VIII, Sec. 1). Moreover, Ukraine is barred from offering to a third party preferential terms for similar products. Notably, the agreement includes no security guarantees form the United States but instead frames the partnership as a form of “strategic alignment,” stating that the deal represents a “tangible demonstration of the United States of America’s support for Ukraine’s security, prosperity, reconstruction, and integration into global economic frameworks” (Art. III, Sec. 4-5).[2]
Many observers considered the April minerals deal a major improvement over previous versions since it did not retroactively credit U.S. contributions to Ukraine’s defense to the joint investment fund and it removed language obstructing Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union down the road (Kirby & Fitzgerald, 2025). While the new version was touted a success, at least relative to the version presented to President Zelenskyy in February 2025, it nonetheless left half of Ukraine’s natural wealth up for grabs by U.S. companies and it failed to provide Ukraine with any security guarantees (Miller & Politi, 2025; McFaul, 2025). Indeed, security guarantees were President Zelenskyy’s primary motivation in proposing a minerals deal to Trump in the first place.
Zelensky’s approach was highly perceptive. Offering mineral extraction rights seemed like a promising way to convince Washington that supporting Ukraine was still in America’s self-interest, since the U.S. is playing catch-up to China in securing access to rare earths and critical minerals essential to many high-tech military and consumer products, like electric vehicles, mobile phones, solar panels, flat screen monitors, wind turbines, guidance systems, etc. (Hodgson, 2025). Given that Ukraine failed to win these guarantees, it may seem odd that the Zelensky government still signed away half of its future revenue streams from rare earths extraction to American investors. At the time of signing, this deal was likely seen as the only hope for continued U.S. interest in Ukraine’s future as an independent state. During the spring of 2025, Trump officials threatened repeatedly that the U.S. would wash its hands of the peace process in favor of “other priorities.” Indeed, what choice did the Ukrainians have under these circumstances (Landler, 2025)? The message was clear: Ukraine can promise the United States Given that Ukraine failed to win these guarantees, it may seem odd that the Zelensky government still signed away half of its future revenue streams from rare earths extraction to American investors. At the time of signing, this deal was likely seen as the only hope for continued U.S. interest in Ukraine’s future as an independent state. During the spring of 2025, Trump officials threatened repeatedly that the U.S. would wash its hands of the peace process in favor of “other priorities.” Indeed, what choice did the Ukrainians have under these circumstances (Landler, 2025)? The message was clear: Ukraine can promise the United States potentially 50 percent of its future mineral wealth or risk losing 100 percent under Russian domination.
The need to keep the United States engaged and interested in Ukraine’s fate as a sovereign state was unambiguous. The brief pause to US intelligence sharing and weapons transfers across the Polish border in early March 2025—which followed the first failed attempt to sign a minerals deal after the acrimonious exchange between these two leaders in the Oval Office—had immediate consequences on the battlefield (Danishevska, 2025). That pause served as an important reminder of just how dependent Ukraine’s defense was on U.S. military support. After the fallout, Ukraine’s military reported that it could no longer use HIMARS systems to fire long-range ATACMS into Russian-controlled territory (Strobel & O’Grady, 2025). Without satellite information, Ukraine couldn’t plan strikes on Russian positions (Mackinnon & McLeary, 2025). Unfortunately, the Europeans and other partners were and remain in no position to fill a gap left by a withdrawal of U.S. military assistance (Appel & Johnson-Saeger, 2025). This limitation extends beyond the field of military intelligence. The American military remains crucial for the provision of artillery, air defenses, and long-range missiles in the short and medium term, especially given Russian capabilities and Europe’s limitations. In the areas of tanks, guided weapons, and aircraft, Europe’s production capacity is low (McGerty & Dewey, 2025). “Meanwhile,” as Appel and Johnson-Saeger write, “Russia continues to invest heavily in its military, outproducing the whole of Europe” (McGerty & Dewey, 2025)
Unfortunately for Ukraine, European producers cannot ramp up their support for Ukraine’s defense very quickly if the U.S. withdraws. Indeed, without the United States’s support and NATO’s Article 5 guarantees, even richer, more powerful states may find themselves unable to protect their borders and safeguard a European liberal order based on democracy, the rule of law, national self-determination, and respect for internationally recognized borders. It is not even clear that Europe’s nuclear states can provide a broader deterrent to help their neighbors. France and UK only have a defensive nuclear deterrent, such that neither country’s nuclear deterrent can operate in a forward-deployed manner like the US (Chevreuil & Horschig, 2025). Without an American commitment to security on the European continent, many states remain vulnerable to a seemingly irrational, but entirely plausible, future Russian attack.
Great Power Competition and Lessons from Ukraine
The greatest threat in the medium term to East European states may very well be the change in norms shaping US foreign policy. In the aftermath of the Cold War, powerful Western countries saw the expansion of membership in multilateral institutions in less transactional terms. Expanding the NATO alliance to include countries like Montenegro or North Macedonia was never seen as a direct strategy for enhancing the security of existing NATO member states. Likewise, for Brussels, adding thirteen new members in the European Union was not driven by a utilitarian logic in any narrow sense. On the contrary, it required deep subsidies to help lift the economic levels of new members at the expense of older members. Instead, the proponents of enlargement were committed to deepening economic integration and expanding the zone of democracy among a greater number of countries, based on liberal norms prevailing at the end of the Cold War (Vachudova, 2005). For this reason, membership conditionality was predicated upon political and economic liberalization (Appel and Taw 2020).
Will European commitments to promote liberalism on the continent suffice to protect the national sovereignty of those countries Russia defines as falling within its self-defined orbit? If the U.S. fully retreats into a position of pursuing narrow self-interest through mercantilist trade policies and indifference to relationships and past alliances, what will Europe’s capacities be? To what extent will America’s commitment to each previous friend and ally be the product of short-term calculations of the potential for resource extraction? Does an American attachment to liberal values and international cooperation among its citizens run deep enough to survive the sea change in US domestic politics?
For now, it remains unclear whether, in the absence of U.S. leadership, smaller liberal states will be able to rely upon the external powers to protect their security, autonomy and control over their own political and economic destinies. It is similarly uncertain whether East European states will manage to remain politically and economically liberal, absent a U.S. commitment to political and economic liberalism at home and abroad. Some may fear that smaller East European states are once again at the mercy of more powerful states and their evolving self-interests—whether that be Russia, China, or the United States itself?
The war of Ukraine highlights the urgency of these questions for vulnerable European states. A central principle of liberal order was that the international community rejected changes to national borders achieved through military force, a norm broken given Russia’s lack of isolation following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Ikenberry, 2018; Zakaria, 2023). While the Ukrainian case is a salient and extreme example, the kind of vulnerability that Ukraine is experiencing applies to several other East European countries trying to preserve their autonomy vis-à-vis more powerful neighbors in a post-liberal order. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, accompanied by the drastic shift in U.S. foreign policy under the current U.S. leadership, demonstrate how difficult it will be for other states to remain sovereign, pursue a liberal orientation, and most significantly, avoid becoming pawns in a great power struggle (Haas, 2018).
[1] Special thanks to the participants at the Conference on The Liberal World Order and the Future of Transatlanticism: Tensions, Debates and Critiques, June 9-10, 2025 for feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. Additional thanks to the sponsors of the conference, the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies, The Robert Schuman Center at the European University Institute, the University of Denver, and the Carnegie Corporation.
[2] The author would like to acknowledge a student research assistant who wishes to remain anonymous for their work with original Ukrainian documents in this section.
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