The United States and Ukraine have signed a rare earth minerals agreement.
Earlier this year President Trump announced that he was demanding Ukraine provide the United States with access to its vast reserves of rare earth minerals in exchange for continued military and financial assistance.
“We’re telling Ukraine, they have very valuable rare Earth. We want what we put up to go in terms of a guarantee. We want a guarantee,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office.
“We’re handing them money hand over fist. We’re giving them equipment. [The] European [Union] is not keeping up with us. They should equalize.”
“Look, we have an ocean in between. They don’t. It’s more important for them than it is for us. But they’re way below us in terms of money, and they should be paying at least equal.
“They should really be paying much more than us, but let’s say equal to us. And they’re billions and billions of dollars below. So we’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare Earth and other things,” Trump said.
After months of back and forth, the US and Ukraine came to an agreement.
“The accord will grant the US first claim on profits transferred into a special reconstruction investment fund that would be controlled by Washington. According to a draft of the document seen by Bloomberg News, the US agreed that only future military assistance that it may provide Ukraine would count toward its contribution to the fund. Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said that Washington dropped its insistence that the deal provide for repayment of billions of dollars in aid already delivered since the start of Russia’s invasion,” Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg reported:
The US and Ukraine reached a deal over access to Ukraine’s natural resources Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the accord, a move that Kyiv sought to solidify President Donald Trump’s backing in ceasefire talks with Russia.
The deal will grant the US privileged access to new investment projects to develop Ukraine’s natural resources including aluminum, graphite, oil and natural gas.
It’s been seen as critical to nurturing Trump’s goodwill toward Kyiv as his administration pushes to end the war that began when Russia mounted its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.
After weeks of Ukrainian and US officials wrangling over the text, momentum toward a breakthrough was building early this week, with Ukrainian negotiators visiting Washington to iron out final details. The two sides had agreed on the main accord but were discussing technical details spelled out in separate texts.
Ukrainian officials had been hoping to sign the overarching deal and nail down the details later, but the US insisted all components be agreed on together, a person familiar with the matter said.
“We made a deal where our money is secure, where we can start digging and doing what we have to do,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting at the White House earlier Wednesday. “It’s also good for them because you’ll have an American presence at the site, and the American presence will keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging.”
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