Huge Windfalls For U.S. Businesses If Trump Lifts Sanctions On Russia
The best way to understand trump is to follow the money and in the case of ending the war in Ukraine, there are billions of dollars just waiting to be made by American companies in Russia.
This may have been the endgame all along.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both said Friday the U.S. might totally walk away from Ukraine if the warring sides do not agree to a peace treaty. Such a move would be a gigantic boost in clearing the way for Russia’s goal to conquer all of Ukraine.
“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” Rubio said upon leaving a conference of allies in Paris. He warned that the cease-fire deal that trump repeatedly vowed he would secure in “24 hours” may not prove attainable after all.
Trump also has spoken of his opposition to sanctions, particularly U.S. sanctions against Russia. Sanctions would likely be lifted against Russia as part of negotiations to end the war. Trump has said Russian sanction should end because Ukraine caused the war, although Russia clearly invaded the country. Europe and the G7 nations want to keep sanctions on Russia.
Since trump took office for a second time, he and aides have consistently favored peace plans that would benefit Russia, including denying Ukraine NATO membership. Trump has said that in order to attain peace, Ukraine would have to give up territory.
Russia is one of the few nations around the world that has escaped from trump’s massive trade tariffs. The trump administration has given varying reasons including not wanting to upset Russia’s involvement in Ukraine peace talks and that tariffs are not necessary because trade is too negligible between Russia and the U.S.
Kirill Dmietriev
There is one significant player in the peace talks about Russia and Ukraine and the concerns in Russia over sanctions. That person is a Russian oligarch by the name of Kirill Dmietriev. He is the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the $10 billion Russian sovereign wealth fund created by the Russian government to co-invest in the Russian economy. The RDIF’s biggest backers are China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The U.S. Treasury Department under President Joe Biden said the RDIF is “widely considered a slush fund for President Vladimir Putin and is emblematic of Russia’s broader kleptocracy.”
When the RDIF was launched in 2011, the inaugural advisors included three of America’s wealthiest private equity tycoons, including Stephen Schwarzman, David Bonderman and Leon Black.
Schwarzman leads Blackstone, is a major trump donor and was chairman of trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum. Bonderman, was founder of TPG Inc., formerly Texas Pacific Group, and its Asian affiliate, Newbridge Capital. Black, founder of Apollo Global Management, was the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art from 2018 to 2021. Black resigned from both Apollo Global Management and the Museum of Modern Art in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations and revelations that he had paid $158 million to Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump nominated Black’s son, Ben, as the CEO of the U.S. Foreign Development Agency which is tasked with making investments in foreign countries. The nominee said he sees the agency reallocating funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to prioritize investment-centric models that benefit American interests. USAID has been largely de-funded and its workforce severely reduced by trump.
Other RDIF inaugural investors included executives from buyout firms Warburg Pincus, whose chairman is Timothy Geithner who served as treasury secretary under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013; Apax Partners, a British private equity firm; and Permira, also based in England.
Representatives for all three private equity billionaires said they stepped down from their advisory positions after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.
In February 2022, both Dmitriev, 50, and the RDIF were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions would have to be lifted in order for RDIF to resume activities with U.S. companies.
Under Dmitriev’s leadership RDIF claims to be the first state owned Russian company to call for diplomatic solution and peace in Ukraine.
Dmietriev also is a special presidential envoy for economic cooperation with foreign countries. He has been the main representative of President Vladimir Putin in talks about peace in Ukraine with U.S. special envoy Steven Witkoff.
Just last week, TASS, the Russian news agency, reported that the RDIF “sees requests galore to return to Russia from US firms, including energy companies.”
“I think the focus on joint partnerships is the right focus for further cooperation with American businesses, which, yes, are really interested in working in Russia,” said Dmitriev.
Dmietriev was interviewed on the far right Channel One network where he emphasized that the RDIF is seeing “a large number of requests from American companies, including to us, in the energy sector and other areas. But they can only come to where Russia will welcome them.”
Dmitriev said that 150 U.S. firms are still operating in Russia, of which 70 percent have been present in the country for 25 years.
“And despite the political pressure, they just continue to successfully conduct business in Russia,” Dmitriev said.
Dmitriev recently met in Washington with Witkoff, representing the first high-ranking Russian official to visit Washington for talks since 2022. CNN said the visit was aimed at strengthening relations between Russia and the U.S. and finding ways to end the conflict in Ukraine.
Dmitriev said he did not raise sanctions relief in his meetings with the Trump administration in Washington, D.C., but he said lifting punitive measures could pave the way for more U.S. business with Russia.
“At this point, we are not asking for any sanction relief. We are just discussing that if America wants to have more business with Russia … then of course US can do so,” Dmitriev told CNN’s Phil Mattingly on “The Lead.”
In a separate interview with TASS, Dmitriev said that the trump administration “understands Russia’s concerns.”
“One of the main topics is the restoration of Russian-American relations, the dialogue that was stopped and interrupted under the Joe Biden administration,” Dmitriev said after his meeting in footage released by TASS.
Rare Earth Materials
The Trump administration has pushed for a deal to gain access to rare earth mines in Ukraine in compensation for tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military aid the U.S. has sent to Ukraine after Moscow invade in February 2022.
Rare earths and other critical metals, are essential for high-tech industries, and have gained global attention in recent months due to trump’s efforts to counter China’s dominance in the sector. Fighter jets, submarines, bullets and other weaponry used by the U.S. military are built with minerals processed by Beijing.
The U.S. and Ukraine have signed a “memorandum of intent” on such an agreement. A meeting to arrange the agreement had been jeopardized because of harsh words by trump and Vice President JD Vance in a White House meeting that ended with Zelensky being expelled.
Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said in a statement late Thursday that Kyiv and Washington had “taken a step” toward memorializing what Ukrainian officials have termed an economic partnership agreement on Ukrainian rare earth minerals, which fall under the broader umbrella of critical materials. Svyrydenko, who also is Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, said the final deal would include a new investment fund to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction.
“The relevant agreement will open opportunities for significant investments, infrastructure modernization and a mutually beneficial partnership between Ukraine and the United States,” Svyrydenko said.
Last month, trump said he wants the U.S. to build metals refining facilities on Pentagon military bases as part of his plan to boost domestic production of critical minerals. Trump plans to name a critical minerals czar to coordinate efforts to find and mine rare earth minerals.
Dmitriev said Russia’s sovereign wealth fund is pursuing the development of rare earth deposits in the country and wants to partner with U.S. companies. Dmitriev said Russia’s reserves of rare earth metals “exceed the amount in Ukraine by several fold, and we are looking at a number of Russian deposits.” Putin also has offered the U.S. the opportunity, under a future economic deal, to jointly explore Russia’s rare earth metal deposits.
Dmitriev has mentioned a number of potential areas on which Russia and the United States could work together, from investment, rare earths and energy to the Arctic, space and cooperation with Elon Musk.
“We would like to involve American companies in these projects, there is significant interest, but Russia must also be interested,” Dmitriev said.
Russia has the world’s fifth-largest reserves of rare earth metals, according to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data, following China, Brazil, India, and Australia. USGS estimates Russia’s reserves total 3.8 million metric tons. Russian estimates of its overall rare earth reserves are higher.
According to the Natural Resources Ministry, Russia has reserves of 15 rare earth metals totaling 28.7 million tons as of January 1, 2023. Of that 3.8 million tons is either under development or ready for development, it says.
TASS also quoted Dmitriev as saying that some American companies may return to the Russian market in the second quarter of 2025. Dmitriev said that the withdrawal of American businesses from Russia had cost foreign companies more than $300 billion, with the main losses in IT and media ($123 billion), the consumer sector and healthcare ($94 billion), the financial sector ($71 billion), industry ($26 billion) and energy ($10 billion).
TASS reported that the Union of Shopping Centers suggested returns of clothing manufacturers Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing retailer; Inditex, a Spanish multinational clothing company that sells brands Zara, Bershka, Pull & Bear, Stradivarius; and the Swedish clothing retailer, H&M are considering returning to Russia.
Dmitriev reportedly acted as Putin’s unofficial representative during trump’s first term in office. Dmitriev was involved in discussions including negotiations related to prisoner exchanges and other diplomatic matters. His role was significant in fostering connections between Moscow and Washington during that period.
In addition to leading negotiations with Russia over the war in Ukraine, Witkoff is trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff, who had no diplomatic experience, is a billionaire who runs a real estate development and investment firm. He is a longtime friend and golf partner of trump and has donated millions to trump’s political causes over the years. He also partnered with Trump on the president’s family cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.
Witkoff started off as a real estate attorney who went on to found a management company that focused on residential buildings in New York City. In 1997, he founded his namesake real estate firm, Witkoff, where he currently serves as chairman and chief executive officer. He’s now Florida-based, like Trump.
Witkoff was among trump’s handpicked speakers at the Republican National Convention in July 2024, along with Witcoff’s son, Zach, who at the family real estate firm.
Dmitriev was born in Kiev, and in 1989, he came to a host family in New Hampshire, as one of the first Soviet exchange students from Ukraine. He lived with family friends in California, and later earned degrees from Stanford University and Harvard Business School.
He worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in New York and a consultant at McKinsey & Company in Los Angeles, Moscow, and Prague. In 2000, he returned to Russia, where he was an associate at private equity fund Delta Private Equity Partners from 2002 to 2007, while also working for the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund.
Dmitriev also has extensive connections in the Middle East. RDIF’s partners include the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. These funds’ governing bodies and boards of directors include heads of state, government officials, and their relatives — many of whom are in regular contact with Dmitriev.
Back in 2017, shortly before trump’s first inauguration, Dmitriev met with UAE officials and a group of American businessmen in the Seychelles. Among them was Erik Prince, founder of the private military company Blackwater and brother of Betsy DeVos, whom Trump later appointed secretary of education. U.S. Special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the U.S. elections, later suggested that the Seychelles meeting was one of several aimed at establishing backchannel communications between Russian officials and the incoming Trump administration.
Soon after Trump’s first inauguration, Dmitriev met with White House advisor Anthony Scaramucci at the World Economic Forum in Davos.