President Trump said Monday that he has plans for economic development transactions with Russia, saying the talks are proceeding “very well.”

In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump said the earlier G7 call focused on finding a way to end the Ukraine war, mentioning the rare earths deal he previously talked about striking with Ukraine as a way to break even with the amount of money the U.S. has spent in aid to help Ukraine.

“At the same time, I am in serious discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia concerning the ending of the War, and also major Economic Development transactions which will take place between the United States and Russia,” he said. “Talks are proceeding very well! 

While meeting in the Oval Office with French President Emmanuel Macron, Mr. Trump said Russia has “a lot of things that we want.”

“I don’t know if that will come to fruition, but we’d love to be able to do that,” he said. “They have massive rare earth … they have very valuable things that we could use and we have things that they could use and it would be very good if we could do that.”

He said the deal with Russia would be “a very good thing for world peace, for lasting peace.”

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.