Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will fly to Washington D.C. to sign a rare earth mineral deal with President Donald Trump on Friday, formalising a future economic relationship between the two countries and ensuring a return on investment for America’s large spending on the Ukraine war.
Dealmaker Donald Trump appears to have struck again, with Ukraine agreeing to sign a mineral rights deal without explicit future security guarantees. Both the U.S. and Ukraine say President Zelensky will go to Washington on Friday to seal the deal with President Trump in person.
President Trump mooted the deal as a way of recouping the billions of dollars the United States has spent on supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion. While an investment fund is mutually beneficial, with Ukraine urgently needing new industries post-war if it hopes to recover, the deal had initially been dismissed out of hand as unreasonably demanding.
ZHYTOMYR REGION, UKRAINE – FEBRUARY 25: Bucket-wheel excavators mine rare earth materials on Ukrainian soil on February 25, 2025 in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine. Despite the ongoing war, many mining companies across the country have continued their operations, extracting resources such as titanium, graphite, and beryllium. (Photo by Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)
Yet just days later a slightly renegotiated initial framework agreement has been settled on by both sides, the Financial Times states, citing a copy of the paper they claim to have seen. The publication cites Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, who has been the lead person in negotiations for Kyiv and said the agreement is the start of something bigger.
She is reported to have said: “The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture”.
Ukraine has said President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to the U.S. on Friday to sign the deal, following President Trump saying on Tuesday that he expected Zelensky on Friday. He said: “I hear that he’s coming on Friday. Certainly, it’s OK with me if he’d like to. And he would like to sign it together with me. And I understand that’s a big deal, very big deal.”
Under the deal to be signed, the U.S. and Ukraine agree to jointly develop resources, including rare earth minerals, oil, and gas, and that there will be a joint investment fund. Ukraine is reported to have agreed to pay 50 per cent of proceeds from ‘future monetisation’ of state-owned minerals into the fund, and the U.S. agrees to “back Ukraine’s economic development into the future”.
The initial document — a “framework agreement” is relatively light on detail but sets the stage for future negotiations on the finer points, including the size of America’s stake in the fund and how joint ownership will work.
In the initial U.S. negotiating position the fund was to have been worth a set $500 billion, and Ukraine wanted absolute security guarantees to come with signing. In both cases, a compromise seems to have been sought. While there is no explicit security guarantee in this deal, the United States having a real economic stake in Ukraine keeps it anchored to the region and interested in its security and development.
There are important geopolitical aspects to the United States being involved in Ukraine economically after the war too, and President Trump, with his strategic focus on China, appears to be moving with that in mind. As previously reported on this aspect:
Ukraine is home to a bountiful supply of naturally occurring rare earth minerals and other minerals considered critical for modern industries. Among the most coveted are lithium, used to make batteries for mobile phones and laptops, and the critical nuclear energy product uranium. Ukraine is believed to be home to as much as five percent of the world’s known critical mineral reserves.
This wealth has made Ukraine an attractive target for China. The Ukrainian government, prior to Zelensky being elected president, became a member of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a debt-trap scheme in which China offers poor countries predatory loans for alleged infrastructure projects. Zelensky has embraced the potential of Chinese investment in post-war Ukraine, inviting dictator Xi Jinping to talks and hoping “Chinese businesses” take an interest in reconstruction.
A major American presence in the Ukrainian mineral industry would likely have a deterrent effect on Chinese investment there, which often brings with it malign Chinese government influence and propagation of communist ideology.
The question of economic development after the war will naturally interact with the peace deal that hasn’t yet even been negotiated. With an eye, perhaps, both on undermining this growing business relationship between the Trump White House and Ukraine and on bolstering its own economy in future, Russia has this week come forward with its own rare earth deal proposal.
Russia has claimed to control Ukraine’s best rare earth deposits in the territory it occupies, and President Putin said this week: “We would work with pleasure with any foreign partners including with Americans… We are also ready to attract foreign partners to our so-called new territories — our historic territories that have gone back to being part of Russia.”
Such a prospect — assuming it isn’t simply bluff — will be a bitter pill indeed for many to swallow, not least European leaders who have made regime change in Russia a de facto foreign policy goal. But Trump may take the view the more business Russia does with the West, the less it will do with China, contributing to what appears to be his strategic policy goals.