US, Ukraine Agree To Minerals Deal

Ukraine and the US have come to an agreement on a framework for a comprehensive economic deal that would include access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, three senior Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.

The officials, privy to the matter, requested anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly. One of them said that Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of US military support that Ukraine urgently needs.

The agreement could be signed as early as Friday and plans are being drawn up for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to travel to Washington to meet President Donald Trump, according to one of the Ukrainian officials.

Another official said the agreement would provide an opportunity for Zelenskyy and Trump to discuss continued military aid to Ukraine, which is why Kyiv is eager to finalise the deal.

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said he’d heard that Zelenskyy was coming and added that “it’s okay with me, if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me”.

Trump called it a big deal that could be worth a trillion dollars. “It could be whatever, but it’s rare earths and other things.” According to one Ukrainian official, some technical details are still to be determined. However, the draft does not include a contentious Trump administration proposal to give the US USD 500 billion worth of profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv.

Instead, the US and Ukraine would have joint ownership of a fund, and Ukraine would in the future contribute 50 per cent of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil, and gas.

One official said the deal had better terms of investments and another one said that Kyiv secured favourable amendments and viewed the outcome as “positive”.

The deal does not, however, include security guarantees. One official said that this would be something the two presidents would discuss when they meet.

The progress in negotiating the deal comes after Trump and Zelenskyy traded sharp rhetoric last week about their differences over the matter.

Zelenskyy said he balked at signing off on a deal that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed during a visit to Kyiv earlier this month, and the Ukrainian leader objected again days later during a meeting in Munich with Vice President JD Vance because the American proposal did not include security guarantees.

Trump then called Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” and claimed his support among voters was near rock-bottom.

But the two sides made significant progress during a three-day visit to Ukraine last week by retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.

The idea was initially proposed last fall by Zelenskyy as part of his plan to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in future negotiations with Moscow.