The most important thing to know about the minerals deal between the US and Ukraine is that it has been signed.
For all the bluster emanating from Washington late on 30 April, where US treasury secretary Scott Bessent hailed the agreement as a “historic economic partnership,” it is unlikely that American companies will now be flooding into Ukraine to exploit the mineral wealth of a country that is under relentless aerial bombardment from Russia.
Similarly, while the Ukrainian side no doubt welcomes Bessent’s remarks that the deal signals the Trump administration’s commitment “to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine,” the final agreement includes none of the security guarantees Kyiv initially demanded and is unlikely to bring the war any closer to an end.
Still, the deal offers both sides the opportunity to claim a symbolic win. Most importantly, they can move on from what had become a significant source of tension in their relationship. Months of tortuous wrangling behind the scenes erupted into full view during the now-infamous meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in February. Back then, ahead of an expected signing ceremony, the Ukrainian president pressed Trump on the need for security guarantees to accompany the deal. In response, Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, shouted down Zelensky, accusing him of “gambling with World War Three”. Trump then ejected him from the White House, telling him to come back when he was “ready for peace”.
Despite that public rupture and Trump’s repeated overtures towards Russia – he has dispatched his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Moscow for several meetings with Vladimir Putin, insisted that the Russian leader wants peace, and accused Ukraine, falsely, of starting the war – Zelensky’s team continued negotiating on the terms of the minerals deal. The final text appears significantly more favourable to Kyiv than an earlier version Bessent presented to Zelensky in February.
That deal, which some observers characterised as “blatant extortion,” required Ukraine to sign over the rights to 50 per cent of the proceeds from extracting its natural resources. This was intended to serve as payback for US military support since the start of the war, which the Trump administration calculated to be worth $500 billion. (The real figure is closer to $120 billion.) Zelensky rejected the proposal, insisting he could not sign an agreement that “ten generations of Ukrainians will have to repay”.
The revised agreement involves compromises on both sides. The Americans dropped their demand for retrospective payback and the exclusive rights to Ukrainian mineral ventures. Instead, they agreed that only future US military aid would count. US companies will be given preferential access to new mineral extraction projects and the resulting profits held in a jointly managed development fund. That money will then go towards reconstruction in Ukraine, at least for the first decade. The Ukrainians similarly accepted that the text will not include the security guarantees they had sought, merely giving the US an economic stake in the country’s future peace and security.
The final deal followed an extraordinary meeting between Trump and Zelensky ahead of Pope Francis’s funeral at the Vatican on 26 April, where the two leaders talked one-on-one, seated on red velvet chairs, amongst the marble columns of St. Peter’s Basilica. Zelensky reportedly urged Trump to take a stronger line against Putin and reiterated that Ukraine, unlike Russia, was prepared to accept an unconditional ceasefire as a prelude to serious peace negotiations. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, flew to Washington to sign the minerals deal, alongside Bessent, shortly afterwards.
It had been Zelensky’s idea to draw Trump’s attention to Ukraine’s mineral resources, including deposits of titanium, lithium, and rare earth minerals, in the first place. Last September, at the height of the US presidential election campaign, Zelensky flew to the US to press his case on the need for continued American support with both the leading candidates. He had a cordial meeting with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden in the Oval Office, angered some Republicans by visiting an arms factory in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania alongside Democratic governor Josh Shapiro, then travelled on to Trump Tower in New York. There, he presented Trump with his “victory plan,” which included a proposal for Ukraine’s strategic partners to invest in the country’s mineral resources, and a secret annex detailing the potential deposits.
Zelensky appeared to assess, accurately, that there was little point in appealing to Trump with a moral argument on the injustices of the Russian invasion, or the consequences for European security or international law. Instead, he sought to secure continued US support by offering the famously deal-oriented president an economic incentive to stand by Ukraine. By dangling the prospect of a US stake in Ukraine’s mineral resources, he aimed to persuade Trump – with whom he has had a fraught relationship since being caught up in his first impeachment scandal in 2019 – that his country’s security was worth fighting for. At the same time, he has tried to convince Trump that it is Russia, not Ukraine, that is the real obstacle to peace, and that Putin is not seriously interested in ending the war.
After their meeting at the Vatican, Trump acknowledged, for the first time, that the Russian leader “may be tapping me along”. It was the first sign that Zelensky’s message might, finally, be getting through. At a minimum, this deal puts an end to the months-long wrangling between Kyiv and Washington, and enables Trump to make the case to his supporters – should he so desire – that the US now has a clear financial interest in ensuring Ukraine emerges from this war with its sovereignty intact. He can now claim that any further shipments of US weaponry to Ukraine represent a downpayment on untold future wealth, with American companies standing to gain from future mining ventures and access to a potentially valuable source of critical minerals.
Perhaps most importantly, this agreement sends a message to Putin that the US is not quite ready to walk away from Ukraine just yet, and that he cannot count on Kyiv’s imminent abandonment after all. Although, of course, all that could change with Trump’s next social media post.
[See also: One hundred days of autocracy]
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