Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is willing to make his country’s significant rare earth and critical mineral resources available to U.S. buyers and investors, responding to President Trump’s push for a similar deal with Ukraine.
Mr. Trump’s surprise offer to Kyiv, which he describes as a way to recoup tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military and financial aid provided in the three-year war against Russia, appears to have sparked a bidding war, with Mr. Putin determined to be at the table.
In an unscheduled video conference with government mining officials and advisers Monday evening, Mr. Putin said the Kremlin was open to American and foreign deals to help develop Russia’s rare earths deposits as part of an agreement to end the war, including some located in Ukrainian lands that have been annexed by Moscow since the war began.
“We are ready to work with our partners, including the Americans,” Mr. Putin said, according to the state-controlled Tass news agency.
“We undoubtedly have, I want to emphasize, significantly more resources of this kind than Ukraine,” Mr. Putin added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected an initial proposal from the Trump administration earlier this month reportedly seeking U.S. access to nearly half of Ukraine’s critical minerals wealth, worth an estimated $500 billion. But the two sides are still negotiating on a potential deal that the White House has called “payback” for Washington’s past support for Kyiv.
Mr. Trump, during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House Monday, told reporters his administration was also exploring a number of economic deals with Russia, a sharp reversal from recent years in which the U.S. and its allies tried to isolate and undermine the Russian economy over Mr. Putin’s decision to invade his neighbor in early 2022.
Ukraine’s reserves of lithium, a key component in electric car batteries and other high-tech products, are estimated to be among the largest in Europe.
But Russia is believed to have one of the world’s largest reserves of other “rare earth” minerals that are also facing exploding demand for a range of high-tech products from cell phones to wind turbines. China is the global leader in many rare earth markets, and the U.S. has been keen to diversify its supply lines.
Mr. Putin said unnamed U.S. and Russian companies are already discussing possible joint deals should a peace agreement with Ukraine be negotiated. He cited in particular Russia’s large reserves of aluminum and the need for foreign investment funds to exploit them.
American companies “will make a decent profit, and the corresponding amounts of aluminum will be delivered to the domestic market at absolutely acceptable market prices,” Mr. Putin remarked.
“There is a lot to think about here.”
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.