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WASHINGTON: Vice President JD Vance has struck a nerve with key allies in the U.K and France after arguing that a US-Ukraine critical minerals deal is a more practical deterrent against Russian President Vladimir Putin than a peacekeeping force for post-war Ukraine that includes “some random country.”
Vance, in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity aired Monday evening, said the economic pact with Kyiv sought by President Donald Trump “is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
The Trump administration has been making the case that tightening the US-Ukraine economic ties through an agreement that gives the US access to valuable mineral deposits in Ukraine will give Russia pause about taking malign action against Ukraine in the future.
The Republican vice president did not mention any particular country in his skeptical comments about a potential peacekeeping mission. But the “random country” comment was seen by some lawmakers and government officials in the UK and France as a slight that discounted both countries’ partnership with the US military in conflict zones over the last 25 years.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are leading the call for a post-conflict peacekeeping force in Ukraine to prevent Russia from invading again if Moscow and Kyiv reach a truce to put a stop to Russia’s invasion, launched in February 2022.
French troops deployed to Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. And British troops have served alongside American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and in a US-led coalition against the Daesh group.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told broadcaster GB News that “JD Vance is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.”
“For 20 years in Afghanistan, pro rata our size against America’s, we spent the same amount of money, we put the same number of men and women in and we suffered the same losses,” Farage added. “We stood by America all through those 20 years putting in exactly the same contribution. And, all right, they may be six times bigger, but we did our bit.”
Vance on Tuesday took to social media to try to head off the criticism by noting that he didn’t name any countries in the TV interview. He also applauded Britain and France for fighting “bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years, and beyond.”
Later, during an appearance on Capitol Hill, Vance underscored to reporters that “the British and the French have offered to step up in a big way.”
French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu, in France’s parliament, noted the move by Vance. “Thankfully, the American vice president corrected his comments,” Lecornu said.
But in London, Liberal Democrat defense spokeswoman Helen Maguire, a former Royal Military Police officer who served in Iraq, called for the UK ambassador in Washington to ask Vance to apologize.
“JD Vance is erasing from history the hundreds of British troops who gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said. “I saw firsthand how American and British soldiers fought bravely together shoulder to shoulder. Six of my own regiment, the Royal Military Police, didn’t return home from Iraq. This is a sinister attempt to deny that reality.”
Vance’s comments came in an interview recorded hours before a White House official confirmed on Monday evening that Trump had directed a pause of US assistance to Ukraine as he seeks to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to engage in negotiations to end the war with Russia.
Trump remains frustrated with Zelensky. He again criticized the Ukrainian leader on Monday after Zelensky said that reaching an agreement with Russia to end the conflict likely “is still very, very far away.”
Trump administration and Ukrainian officials, during Zelensky’s White House visit last week, had been expected to sign off on a deal that would have given the US access to Ukraine’s critical minerals in part to pay back the US for aid it has sent Kyiv since the start of the war.
But that plan was scrapped as the visit was ended abruptly after Trump and Vance had a heated exchange with Zelensky during Oval Office talks at the start of the visit.
Ukraine is believed to have deposits of strategically important minerals — including titanium. lithium and manganese — that could be useful for American aerospace, electric vehicle and medical manufacturing.
“The president knows that, look, if you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said in the Fox interview.
Trump hasn’t given up all hope of reaching an agreement. And the White House has billed such a pact as a way to tighten US-Ukrainian relations in the long term.
Trump on Monday called the proposal “a great deal” for the US and Ukraine and signaled that he would speak to it during his Tuesday address before a joint session of Congress.
Starmer says that “a mineral deal is not enough on its own” to ensure Ukraine’s security. The British prime minister has no illusions about US troops taking part in a potential peacekeeping mission.
Starmer, who met with Trump last week, and others are trying to make the case to Trump that the plan can only work with a US backstop for European forces on the ground — through US aerial intelligence, surveillance and support, as well as rapid-response cover in case of breaches of a truce.