In late February 2025, the United States and Ukraine appeared close to signing a framework agreement on mineral development and postwar reconstruction. The deal was widely seen as an uneasy compromise but politically tolerable.

Yet, during President Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington, a tense confrontation with President Trump and Vice President Vance ruined the process. The agreement, printed and prepared for signature, was left on the table: unsigned and suddenly uncertain.

A month later, reports emerged of a significantly expanded version of the proposal: not a memorandum, but a comprehensive legal framework with broader scope and greater complexity. Although the authenticity of the draft has not been officially confirmed, its institutional architecture, reviewed by regional analysts and legal experts, marks a clear departure from the principles of equal partnership.

If accurate, the new proposal transforms reconstruction from partnership into transaction. Instead of offering investment in exchange for shared security, it ties support to the sale of Ukraine’s natural resources on terms set by Washington. What’s being constructed isn’t just a fund – it’s a system of control that can bypass Ukraine’s own laws, sideline its parliament, and hand decision-making power to foreign officials.

This agreement abandons the usual model of postwar support. Instead of following established patterns like the Marshall Plan, it creates an entirely new system designed to give long-term control to the outside power that builds it. By embedding inequality into the structure of the fund, the deal threatens to transform Ukraine’s recovery from a joint effort into a form of managed dependence.

The main danger isn’t just economic – it’s political. If Ukraine accepts the deal, it would lock itself into a system where its sovereignty depends on following rules it didn’t write and can’t change on its own. That’s the deeper issue: not just what the deal says today, but the precedent it sets for rebuilding through control rather than partnership.

What the deal actually says

At its core, the proposed agreement creates an American-Ukrainian Fund for Reconstruction and Investment.

• On paper, it appears to be a partnership.
• In practice, it centralizes authority in American hands.

The Fund would be governed by a five-member board: three appointed by the US, two by Ukraine. The US side holds full veto power over all decisions. This board would control not only investment decisions but also the use of profits, the timing of reinvestments, and the potential reassignment of rights.

Ukraine would be required to contribute 50% of the revenues from new natural resource projects, including oil, gas, and critical minerals. In return, the US side would receive an annual 4% yield on its “initial contribution,” defined as the total value of US aid to Ukraine since 2022—aid that had previously been understood as non-repayable.

The agreement sets no time limits on the arrangement. It can only be amended or dissolved at the discretion of the US side.

It contains no provisions for security guarantees or mutual defense that Ukraine desperately needs. What it does contain are clauses that allow the US to block sales, reassign interests, and maintain control over future licensing decisions.

Crucially, the structure removes decision-making from Ukraine’s public institutions. Revenues that would normally flow to the national budget would instead be channeled through the Fund. Profits from state and even private extraction projects would pass through a system where Ukraine holds neither majority control nor veto power. Legal disputes would reportedly be handled under US law rather than international arbitration mechanisms.

The blueprint of dependency

This deal isn’t merely an investment vehicle – it’s an instrument for restructuring the political economy of postwar Ukraine under external direction. Its operational logic is grounded in four interlocking mechanisms that create a comprehensive system of control.

1. Fiscal externalization

The deal removes a core function of the Ukrainian state – resource revenue management – and transfers it to an offshore decision-making structure. The fund becomes the primary channel for income generated from new extraction projects, displacing the national budget as the point of allocation.

This undermines macroeconomic planning, disrupts Ukraine’s IMF coordination, and reorients domestic policy incentives toward satisfying the governance protocols of an external entity rather than the needs of Ukrainian citizens.

2. Institutional asymmetry

Despite the nominal framing of “joint management,” authority within the fund is structurally unequal by design. The United States appoints the majority of the board (3 out of 5 members) and holds veto power over key investment decisions. Ukraine’s representatives are not only outnumbered but subject to approval by the US side.

This creates a governance system where Ukrainian actors are procedurally included but substantively constrained – a model better described as embedded compliance architecture than genuine partnership.

3. Embedded conditionality

By pegging future returns to the value of past US assistance, assistance previously framed as non-repayable, the deal introduces retroactive financial obligations under the guise of investment return.

This effectively monetizes political loyalty, converting wartime aid into a structural claim on Ukraine’s future resource flows. It also introduces compounded liabilities through a fixed annual return (4%), incentivizing Ukraine to fast-track resource monetization under external pressure, potentially at below-market rates.

4. Legal lock-in

The agreement is not anchored in international law but in a privatized legal regime that bypasses constitutional constraints. Dispute resolution mechanisms are external. Amendments require unilateral consent from the US side. This legal architecture consolidates external control and insulates it from domestic renegotiation, ensuring policy path dependence even if Ukraine’s political environment or needs shift.

Taken together, these mechanisms constitute a fundamental reprogramming of state capacity. The fund functions less as a financial institution and more as a quasi-sovereign entity, capable of shaping Ukraine’s national priorities without democratic input or legislative oversight.

What Ukraine must clearly see

This agreement is structurally strategic, and its consequences cannot be negotiated away once implemented. What is at stake is the entire framework through which Ukraine’s recovery, sovereignty, and long-term alignment will be governed for decades to come.

The most immediate risk is not the loss of resources but the loss of negotiating space. By accepting a bilateral structure of this kind, Ukraine would remove itself from the arena of multilateral accountability and place its future inside an architecture where all institutional levers are externally held.

Second, Ukraine must recognize that it is not only offering access to its minerals. It is offering a precedent: a template for how a post-conflict state can be reorganized by its most powerful patron. If accepted, this framework will not remain unique to Ukraine. It will be cited, replicated, and adapted elsewhere.

Third, this deal does not just reflect US strategic interest. It reflects a very specific vision of postwar order: one in which reconstruction is conditional, sovereignty is instrumentalized, and legal structures take the place of genuine alliances. Ukraine must assess not only the immediate trade-offs, but the long-term trajectory such an arrangement creates for its people and institutions.

That means pushing for European institutional involvement, introducing independent oversight mechanisms, and insisting on equal footing in fund governance – not mere representation without power.

Europe’s exclusion is the strategy

Under Donald Trump, the United States no longer sees the European Union as a trusted partner. Vice President Vance has been explicit: the EU, in his view, does not share American values and cannot be relied upon in a future shaped by great power rivalry.

The Reconstruction Investment Fund is a concrete expression of that belief. It deliberately excludes European participation. It fails to acknowledge Europe’s substantial contributions. It ignores the fact that the EU, not the United States, has provided the bulk of Ukraine’s budget support since 2022. The overall EU support to Ukraine and Ukrainians amounts to almost €135 billion – exceeding America’s approximately $120 billion contribution.

If this agreement were truly about rewarding those who helped Ukraine survive, Europe would be at the table. But it isn’t – and that omission reveals the deal’s true purpose.

By structuring Ukraine’s recovery under exclusive US control, the Trump administration is not just isolating Kyiv; it is deliberately isolating Brussels. This deal creates a US-controlled platform inside Europe, capable of projecting American influence deep into the continent: economic, legal, and eventually political. It places the United States at the center of Ukraine’s postwar economy, and from there, gives Washington a forward operating position in the European system itself.

If transatlantic relations deteriorate further, this agreement gives Trump a ready-made instrument of pressure. He would not need to negotiate with Berlin or Paris. He would already hold leverage not just over Ukraine, but over Europe’s eastern frontier – creating divisions within the EU itself.

This is why the agreement must be understood not only as a bilateral deal, but as a geopolitical operation with far-reaching consequences. It sidelines multilateralism. It marginalizes the EU. And it positions Ukraine as a base of operations for an American administration that no longer conceals its contempt for the postwar European order.

This deal is not about reconstruction. It’s about control.

It is architecture. And once it’s built, it will be hard to dismantle.

Ukraine does not need to reject recovery. But it must reject dependency disguised as partnership.

The window to revise this deal is narrow. If it closes, the cost will not be just economic. It will be constitutional – permanently altering the relationship between Ukraine and its supposed allies.