Trump says Ukraine’s Zelenskyy to sign ‘very big’ deal on rare earths

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US president says he expects Ukrainian leader to sign agreement on Friday.

The United States and Ukraine have reached a deal providing access to the European country’s rare earth minerals, US President Donald Trump has said.

Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump confirmed earlier reports that he had reached an agreement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to develop the critical minerals.

“I hear that he is coming on Friday. Certainly, it’s OK with me if he would like to. And he would like to sign it together with me, and I understand that’s a big deal, a very big deal,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office.

Trump said the deal could be worth $1 trillion and will ensure that American taxpayers “get their money back, plus”.

“We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Russia and Ukraine fighting a war that should have never, ever happened.”

Asked what Kyiv would get in return, Trump cited aid worth $350bn that he has claimed has already been provided, and “military equipment and the right to fight on”.

The US Congress appropriated $174bn for Ukraine between 2022 and 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Trump’s remarks followed reports that Washington and Kyiv reached an agreement after Zelenskyy had rejected an earlier draft that would have signed away the rights to $500bn worth of Ukraine’s natural resources.

While the full details of the agreement have not been confirmed, multiple media outlets reported that the deal would see Ukraine contribute 50 percent of the proceeds from the future monetisation of its recourses into a jointly owned fund, which would invest in projects in Ukraine.

The draft text reportedly does not include explicit US security guarantees.

The Financial Times, which first reported on the deal, said the size of Washington’s stake in the fund had yet to be determined.

“What appears to be missing are any security guarantees. This is all financial,”Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, DC, said.

More to follow…