Scott Bessent, US Treasury secretary, in his op-ed (Opinion, FT.com, February 22) backing Donald Trump’s proposed Ukraine minerals deal, quoted in support of the deal a phrase familiar from the Lend-Lease Agreement finally signed in February 1942.
The Lend-Lease bill, enacted in March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor, allowed the US to lend or lease war supplies to countries that were vital to US defence. Article 7, which Bessent quotes, says the US and UK governments agree “to promote mutually advantageous economic relations between them and the betterment of worldwide economic relations”. What he doesn’t quote is how Article 7 goes on to commit the US and UK — and willing others — to prosperity and free trade and then endorses the principles of the Atlantic Charter — of August 1941 — opposing war and conquest. In contrast to these global ideals, Trump’s recent pronouncements speak less of “the betterment of worldwide economic relations” than of the isolationist America First movement of Charles Lindbergh.
Trump needs to show how, in conjunction with allies, this mineral deal will protect Ukraine, reassure Russia, and produce a satisfactory peace.
John Killick
Former Lecturer, University of Leeds,
Author ‘The United States and European Reconstruction, 1945-1960’
Falmouth, Cornwall, UK