Good question. Didn't she have some deal that she pushed through as SAS that gave Putin control over quite a bit of uranium in exchange for cash donations to the Clinton slush fund? I meant charitable slush fund.
Actually no. There is a Canadian company that held a license to mine uranium in the US (Uranium One), a publicly held company, that operates mining operations around the world in about half dozen countries (they started in S Africa). They hold rights to about 20% of the active uranium mines within the USA.
In 2013, Rosotum, the Russian Nuclear Agency which operates as a company/corporation acquired a 51% stake in Uranium One. As a result, that acquisition had to be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United State (CFIUS), which had been created by Gerald Ford for purposes of reviewing foreign investments in the US.
Here's the membership of CFIUS:
- Department of the Treasury (chair)
- Department of Justice
- Department of Homeland Security
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense
- Department of State
- Department of Energy
- Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
- Office of Science & Technology Policy
- Office of Management & Budget
- Council of Economic Advisors
- National Security Council
- National Economic Council
- Homeland Security Council
CFIUS has no authority on its own to block or approve anything. They merely investigate and pass on recommendations to the President. And, in fact, the actual participants from each agency is typically a designated representative, not the Cabinet member his/herself. According to reports, ALL of the members of the CFIUS signed off on the deal.
As for the Uranium itself, it cannot be exported under existing US law and is sold and used purely domestically within the US. So, Putin/Russia do NOT get any of the uranium mined in the US.
But what Russia did get by its purchase in Uranium One was ownership of several of the major uranium mining operations in Kazakhstan, which were held by Uranium One. Kazakhstan produces about 41% of ALL the uranium in the world. By contrast the US produces 3.4% of the worlds supply of uranium ore. The Russians weren't after trying to eke out some profit in the US, they were trying to get a cut and control over 41% of the entire world's supply of uranium and there would have been no way for the US to stop that, even if the President and CFIUS could have vetoed the US portion of that deal. The worst that could have happened would have been that Uranium One could have been forced to divest its ownership in the mines it holds rights to within the US.
So despite all outcry, there really isn't much of anything out of the usual in regard to the approval process for the sale of Uranium One's controlling interest by Russia and the assumption that Russia gets it or has control over isn't born by the facts.
