Did Hillary Clinton give Russia 20% of the United States' uranium?

Question

Donald Trump made this claim in his February 16, 2017, press conference. Did Hillary Clinton give Russia 20% of the US's uranium? What is the source for this claim?

Transcript

Now tomorrow, you’ll say “Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia, this is terrible.” It’s not terrible. It’s good. We had Hillary Clinton try and do a reset. We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things.

Answer 1

This claim comes from Peter Schweizer's book Clinton Cash.

The Washington Post notes that the details mentioned above are correct:

The deal gave Russia control of about 20 percent of U.S. uranium extraction capacity, according to a 2010 CNN article about the deal. In other words, Russia has rights to the uranium extracted at those sites, which represents 20 percent of the U.S. uranium production capacity. (emphasis mine)

However, tying it to Clinton is misleading at best. The evidence seems to rest on two facts:

1. A Canadian businessman (as noted above) that was instrumental in the sale was also a Clinton donor.
2. The State Department was 1 of 9 agencies surveying the deal.

Details about the deal are not very available, but the State Department did not have the authority to stop the deal. Only the President could, according to the Post.

Clinton has denied that she was involved, and the consensus seems to be that the Secretary would mostly likely not be involved in the details.

There were some concerns raised, but they didn't go to her: Some Republican lawmakers in 2010 did raise concerns about the deal — but they sent their letter to then-Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. (Treasury chairs the CFIUS.) Final approval was given by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which noted that the mines would remain under the control of U.S. subsidiaries.

And, as @jeffronicus mentions above, the deal gave the Russian company the right to the profits from the uranium, but not to acquire the uranium itself.

So, in the absence of hard facts, it looks like her agency was one of many involved in approving the deal to sell extraction rights, but that she probably was not involved. In any case, she was not the deciding vote on the review process. You could argue that maybe she could have stopped it, but to answer the question: she was not in the position to "give" anyone anything.

Answer 2

Politifact evaluated a number of claims from Trump's press conference, including this one.

They referred back to a campaign fact check where they rated a similar claim Mostly False:

The reference is to Russia’s nuclear power agency buying a controlling interest in a Toronto-based company. That company has mines, mills and tracts of land in Wyoming, Utah and other U.S. states equal to about 20 percent of U.S. uranium production capacity (not produced uranium).

Clinton was secretary of state at the time, but she didn’t have the power to approve or reject the deal. The State Department was only one of nine federal agencies that signed off on the deal, and only Obama had the power to veto it.

For a statement that contains only an element of truth, our rating is Mostly False.

So the kernel of truth to the claim is that 20% of the uranium production capacity of the US is now controlled by a Russian agency. The problems are that this is production, not uranium. Also, Russia doesn't "have" it. They can't export uranium from the US, so the uranium being produced in the US is still being sold in the US.

Note: while the US uranium is probably safe, Russia has more control over the Kazakhstan uranium. But that's not what Trump said. While there is a real event here, he did not describe it correctly, today or previously.

Answer 3

According to a 2015 New York Times Article,

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Answer 4

We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country.

To the contrary, the claim 'the United States delivered lots of uranium to Russia' has it backwards!

Between 1993 to 2013, Russia sold the United States 15000 tonnes of low enriched uranium (LEU), downblended from 500 tonnes of weapons-grade high enriched uranium (HEU). This was the Megatons to Megawatts Program.

The idea of physicist Thomas Neff, the program was announced by President Bush in 1992 and signed by President Clinton in 1993. In the United States, the uranium fuel—at below market cost—generated as much as 10% of electricity for 20 years. In Russia, the program provided a bankrupt state the funding to secure and pacify weapons-grade uranium in crumbling facilities across five volatile young republics. In my opinion, superb policy.

For more information, read Richard Rhodes Twilight of the Bombs.