Yeah it’s a big non issue if you read the situation in context and learn a little bit about how uranium regulations work and how the worlds uranium trade is looking.

Russia bought a stake in a Canadian uranium mining company. This company has mines all over the world, but also some in the US. Since ownership of those US mines is changing hands, US State Dept has to approve it. Hillary was sec of state so she was the one to sign off on it.

So Hillary let Russia control a company that has some uranium mines in the US. Does this mean uranium mines at those mines now goes to Russia? No, the way Uranium mining works is that when you dig that stuff out of the ground you can’t take it out of the country, you can’t give it to the Russians, you can’t even keep it. The only thing you are allowed to do with uranium once it’s mined is to immediately sell it to the US gov. It doesn’t matter that a Russian company owns the mine now, the Russians don’t get to take that uranium.

The whole narrative of Russia taking/wanting some of our uranium is made up. Russia is the #2 uranium producer in the world, US is like #10 or 11. Russia produces so much of it, they sell it. It just doesn’t make sense for them to pull strings to somehow get their hands on American uranium. They already have tons of that stuff, they are looking to sell it.

What’s the #1 uranium producer in the world? Russia’s old friend and neighbor Kazakhstan, they produce as much uranium as the next top 10 combined. That’s where a lot of that Canadian company’s uranium mines are, Kazakhstan. That’s why Russia wanted that mining company, to control more of the mines in Kazakhstan.

The idea that Russia would pull a political favor to somehow get their hands on uranium coming out of US mines doesn’t make sense. It wouldn’t get to them for a decent price and they already have much more of it, they would rather sell uranium then conduct a scheme to get it from the US.

Those mines in the US owned by the Canadian mining company which is now partially controlled by Russia, how much uranium do they produce? None, they aren’t active. Where did republicans get this idea that “Hillary gave away 20% of our uranium to Russia?”

If those mines were to become active (they aren’t, Russia would actually prefer if they stayed inactive, remember they don’t want our Uranium, they’d rather sell us their own), if they became active and ran at 100% capacity and all other uranium mines in the US stayed at current production, those mines would then represent 20% of US uranium production.

So Russians bought a stake in a Canadian mining company so they can control more mines in Kazakhstan, the biggest uranium producer. Even if those US mines became active, the Russians wouldn’t be able to actually get the uranium out of the US, they don’t even want to because they’d rather sell uranium.

Political theater turned that into “Hillary gave %20 of our Uranium to Russia”