Trump says US should engage with Russia because it’s "very valuable earth"

US President Donald Trump has stated that Russia is a "very valuable earth", which the United States "should be dealing with".

Trump said in an interview with Breitbart News that while the economic openness of the US with Russia is not the goal or motivation to separate Russia from China, it could be a consequence of these actions.

"That may be a consequence of it, but no, I think it’s a good thing. We should be dealing with Russia. They have the largest piece of land by far, bigger than China," he said.

Trump explained this by saying that Russia has "11 time zones".

"You can fly through 11 time zones from one side to the other. They have very valuable earth," he is convinced.

Trump reiterated that the US is concluding an agreement with Ukraine regarding rare-earth minerals and therefore, he said, "at least we can say we got our money back and we can do something".

The Financial Times reported that Matthias Warnig, the former head of Nord Stream 2 AG and personally acquainted with Vladimir Putin, offered the US to restart the Nord Stream-2 with their participation.

Commenting on this report, the European Commission noted that the Nord Stream reconstruction project is not of mutual interest to EU states.

On 14 March, Bloomberg, citing informed sources, wrote that Russian and European officials claim the US is exploring cooperation opportunities with the Russian energy giant Gazprom.