Report: Ukraine Agrees to Minerals Deal With the US

The US dropped its demand for a right to $500 billion in potential revenue from Ukraine's natural resources

Ukraine and the US have reached an agreement on a minerals deal after the US backed off on one of its more contentious demands, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The report said that the US had dropped the demand for it to have the right to $500 billion in potential revenue from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and other natural resources, an idea that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has publicly rejected.

The agreement, which was finalized on Monday, will establish a fund where Ukraine will put 50% of its proceeds from rare earth minerals and other resources, including oil and gas, and the fund would invest in projects in Ukraine. The activity of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s largest oil and gas company, and other state-owned enterprises that currently fund the Ukrainian government will be excluded from the fund.

President Trump and President Zelensky meeting in New York City on September 25, 2019 (official White House photo)

It’s unclear what percentage of the fund will be owned by the US as those details will be worked out in follow-on agreements. The deal also doesn’t include explicit security guarantees from the US, which was one of Zelensky’s major demands.

“The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, who led the negotiations, told the FT.

Ukrainian officials told the FT that the agreement has been approved by Ukraine’s justice, economy, and foreign ministers, and they’re hoping Zelensky will go to Washington for a signing ceremony and a meeting with Trump. Later on Tuesday, Trump said that Zelensky was expected to visit the White House on Friday.

“This will be a chance for the president to discuss what the bigger picture is. And then after it, we will be able to think of the next steps,” a Ukrainian official told the FT.

Zelensky’s rejection of the Trump administration’s initial rare earth offer was one of the reasons why President Trump lashed out at the Ukrainian leader and called him a “dictator” for not holding elections. Trump was also frustrated by Zelensky’s complaints about not being invited to the talks between the US and Russia that were held in Saudi Arabia last week.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.