A deal to share revenue from the extraction of minerals, including rare earths, was signed between the United States and Ukraine, with President Donald Trump saluting it as saving America from “looking foolish” for having funded the Ukraine War in return for nothing.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the signing with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko of an agreement to establish the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund on Thursday night. The deal is intended to funnel investment into the primary Ukrainian economy which will in time pay dividends, split 50-50, to the Ukrainian and U.S. governments.
Responding to the signing, U.S. President Donald Trump said he’d settled on the idea after noting “they have great rare earth… minerals, materials — they have things that a lot of places do not have” and that now it was signed, the U.S. would reap benefits in the long term much greater than the “$350 billion, or close to it” ploughed by the American taxpayer into Ukraine’s defence. He said: “we get much more, in theory, than the $350 billion. I did not want to… look foolish”.
The road to the deal has been a rough one, with an earlier bid to get the deal signed collapsing in acrimony in February after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attempting to re-litigate aspects in front of the cameras, in real time, in the Oval Office. That relationship appears to have been patched up since with an impromptu meeting between Trump and Zelensky at the Vatican last week seen as pivotal.
Coming out of that discussion, Trump played down divisions and said Zelensky was now ready to play ball. He said, as reported: “But look [our relationship] was never bad. We had a little dispute because I disagreed with something that he said and the cameras were rolling, and that was OK with me. So we had a dispute but look, he’s in a tough situation, a very tough situation… I see him as calmer, I think he understands the picture, and I think he wants to make a deal”.
The deal has been hailed as a milestone by all comers. From Washington Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who has been at the front of warnings that if progress isn’t made on peace immediately, President Trump is minded to simply walk away from the negotiating table — said: “Thanks to [The President’s] leadership, today the U.S. and Ukraine signed… a milestone in our shared prosperity and an important step in ending this war.”
In Kyiv, the Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called the final deal “good, equal and beneficial”, noting it would now have to go before the Ukrainian parliament — which is utterly dominated by pro-government lawmakers after much of the opposition was banned by martial law — for approval, a process he said could start today. Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs also hailed the deal, saying that it: “marks an important milestone in Ukraine–US strategic partnership aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s economy and security.”
While the text of the agreement has not been published, Shmyhal has shared a summary of what he claims it contains. Among the key points identified are that the Ukraine fund will be 50-50 owned with the United States, that there is no debt obligation for Ukraine to America, and that it will not block the path to Ukraine possibly one day becoming a member of the European Union.
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