President Donald Trump, responding to a reporter on Monday, said that the Ukraine mineral deal is not dead but lamented the fact that the entire United States Navy could have been rebuilt with the money the U.S. has given to Ukraine.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said when asked if the deal for Ukraine’s rare earth minerals was dead in the water. “I think it’s a great deal for us because, you know, Biden very foolishly—stupidly, frankly—gave $300 billion, or more accurately $350 billion, to a country to fight and to try to do things. And you know what happened? We got nothing. We just gave it away.

“If we could have rebuilt our entire US Navy with $350 billion—think of it, $350 billion—we could have rebuilt our US Navy. So he gave it away as fast as the money could be gone,” Trump continued. “What we’re doing is getting that all back and a lot more than that. What we need—it’s very important for this business we’re talking about here with chips, semiconductors, and everything else—is rare earths.

“The deal we have is that we have the finest rare earths,” the president added before the reporter asked what he needed to see from the Ukrainian president to restart negotiations.

“Well, I just think he should be more appreciative because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin. We’ve given them much more than Europe, and Europe should have given more than us because, as you know, that’s right there. That’s the border,” the president said.

“This country really was like the fence on the border. It was very important to Europe, and I’m not knocking Europe. I’m saying they were a lot smarter than Joe Biden because Joe Biden didn’t have a clue. He just gave money hand over fist, and they should have been able to equalize with us. In other words, if we gave a dollar, they should have given a dollar,” Trump added.

“Well, we gave $350 billion. They probably gave $100 billion, but on top of it all, they get their money back because they’re doing it in the form of a loan—and it’s a secured loan. So when I saw that, which I’ve known about for a little while, I said it’s time for us to be smart,” he said.

“At the same time, it’s great for them because they get us in the country taking the rare earths, which are going to fuel this big engine—especially the engine that we’ve created in a very short time. We get something, and we’re there. We have a presence there,” Trump said.

“With all of that being said, I want one thing to happen: I want all of those young people to stop being killed. They’re being killed by the thousands every single week. Last week, 2,700 were killed—2,700 young people, in this case just about all young boys, from Ukraine and from Russia. That’s not young people from the United States, but on a human basis, I want to see it stop,” Trump said.

“The money is one thing, but the death—they’re losing thousands of soldiers a week, and that’s not including the people who get killed every time a town goes down or a missile hits a town. I want to see it stop,” he added.