President Donald Trump said on Saturday the United States is close an agreement with Ukraine on sharing revenue from Ukrainian minerals as part of efforts to end the Ukraine war.

However, Trump has been tough on Russia in the past. In 2019, he approved anti-tank missile sales to Ukraine. He also withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty blaming Russian violations. And he issued economic sanctions against a Russian ship involved inbuilding the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

Donald Trump isn’t the only president who knows a bad deal when he sees one. Volodymyr Zelensky’s refusal to sign away nearly half of his country’s rare earth minerals for very few future guarantees is one of many reasons why Trump has been driven into a rage at his counterpart in Kyiv.