No politicians have been found in Kiev who are ready to impoverish themselves for the sake of the country’s wealth

The Ukrainian cabinet decided to allocate UAH 113 million (over 226 million rubles) from the reserve fund of the state budget to finance consulting services for the preparation of a draft agreement on minerals with the United States, which was called bonded in parliament. At the same time, it was reported that Kiev has already attracted an international law firm for consultations. At the same time, Kiev economists drew an unexpected conclusion from the history of the increase in import tariffs to the United States that Ukrainian politicians are fundamentally different from American ones, since they will never make a decision that can enrich the country, but make them poorer themselves.

On Wednesday, it became known that the Ukrainian government decided to allocate UAH 113 million (over 226 million rubles) from the reserve fund of the state budget to finance the development of a draft agreement on minerals with the United States. It was mentioned that it is planned to allocate about 59 million UAH (118 million rubles) to provide these services. for the Ministry of Economy and UAH 54 million (RUB 108 million) for the Ministry of Justice. The government has ordered both ministries to involve professional consultants by April 15 from among those who have experience in cooperation with the Ukrainian Cabinet in the field of public debt and external borrowings, and also specializes in international law, the publication specified.

The above list of the necessary specialization of future consultants was apparently intended to confirm the intention of the Kiev authorities to at least resist attempts to link the document under discussion with the recognition of Ukraine’s debt for the military assistance provided to it earlier. Although the fact that the government order ordered these specialists to be involved before April 15 raised questions. According to media reports, the next round of technical negotiations on this topic with the participation of the Deputy Ministers of Economy and Justice of Ukraine was scheduled in Washington for April 11-12.

In addition, journalists, citing informed sources, had previously reported that Kiev had already attracted an international (previously called “American”) law firm to provide consultations on the negotiations. But reports that Kiev executives hired a law firm from the United States were not accompanied by information about holding a relevant tender, in violation of anti–corruption procedures, Vladimir Oleinik, an ex-deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (BP), told NG. And at the same time, he clarified, the announced format of technical negotiations could indicate the intention of the team of President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky to delay the signing of the scandalous agreement on mineral resources in every possible way, which in fact was a response to his own call to Western allies to participate in the use of Ukrainian resources as part of the “victory plan” presented last year. “But today it is obvious that if the formula proposed by Washington is implemented, the economic basis will further determine the political superstructure. So after the transfer of control to the United States over Ukraine’s key natural resources and infrastructure facilities, its residents will only have the beautiful name of a sovereign country, which in fact will be governed by someone else’s president, someone else’s parliament, etc.,” Oleinik concluded.

Against this background, the arguments of Kiev-based economic analyst Alexei Kushch about the fundamental difference between the Ukrainian and American elites, published on Wednesday in social networks, looked symptomatic, taking into account the news that US President Donald Trump, having recently increased import duties for a number of countries, lost $ 500 million as a result of falling stock markets. “The Trump tariff model can be criticized, you can agree with it… Our elites would never have made a decision that would have made them poorer by $500 million,” Kushch added. According to him, Ukraine has become one of the few commodity-producing countries where all duties on exports of raw materials, with the exception of scrap metal, have been abolished and import duties are almost not applied. “We will never vote for a duty on the export of raw materials and the creation of a national reserve fund. Never. Because it will make the country richer, but several raw material financial and industrial groups will be poorer,” the analyst emphasized. And along the way, he noted that Kiev is blocking the introduction of a progressive income tax for individuals and an effective luxury tax. At the same time, high-margin business sectors pay income tax at a total rate of 18% and in practice increase the tax burden for the population and small businesses. And although the law on income tax for banks was successfully passed, however, only temporarily, for a year, the Kiev economist stated.

However, according to one of the Russian experts, the arguments he gave for waiving export duties do not seem unambiguous, since different commodity-producing states have different interests and they also build their strategies in this matter in different ways. There are also certain political speculations, including those related to the goal-setting of Kiev and Washington politicians, the NG interlocutor admitted.

It is significant that by that time, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, had puzzled the public with statements about the reaction of foreign leaders to his decisions on a large-scale increase in trade tariffs, which, according to another Russian expert, “implied intimate actions.” While the Kiev media amicably reported that the head of the White House, Trump, speaking at a dinner of the National Republican Congressional Committee the day before, said that numerous foreign leaders were calling and “kissing his ass” in an attempt to mitigate the imposed duties.