WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump said Monday that he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as soon as this week to sign a deal that would see the US receive a share of Ukraine’s critical mineral and natural resource revenues.
“I will be meeting with President Zelenskyy. In fact, he may come in this week or next week to sign the agreement, which would be nice. I’d love to meet him. We’d meet at the Oval Office,” Trump told reporters as he hosted French President Emanuel Macron at the White House.
“The agreement’s being worked on now. They’re very close to a final deal. It’ll be a deal with rare earths and various other things. And he would like to come, as I understand it, here to sign it. And that would be great with me. I think they’d then have to get it approved by the council or whoever might approve it, but I’m sure that will happen,” he added.
Ukraine has so far declined to sign the agreement as negotiations continue over major sticking points, including security guarantees for Ukraine and whether the mineral rights would be exchanged solely for future US military aid, or whether it would cover previous installments that were given to Kyiv by the Biden administration.
Ukraine is sitting on massive reserves of critical rare earth minerals that could total trillions of dollars. It holds about 5% of the world’s total mineral resources, according to a 2024 World Economic Forum report.
Besides having one of the largest confirmed reserves of lithium, Ukraine boasts semiconductor-grade neon gas that is critical for chip production, beryllium, uranium, zirconium, apatite, iron ore, and manganese.
US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who has rejected Ukraine’s entry into NATO due to the alliance’s mutual defense article, maintained the US would in fact defend any economic investment it makes in Ukraine’s mineral resources.
“This could mean trillions, not only for the Ukrainian people, but for us and for stability for the region. And that economic investment is one of the best security guarantees that Ukraine could hope for,” he said during a Monday morning interview with Fox News.
Trump said he could end the war in Ukraine “within weeks if we’re smart,” and voiced an openness to traveling to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin if the war is brought to an end.
Asked by a reporter if he considers Putin to be a dictator, Trump declined to say if he would, saying instead: “I don’t use those words lightly.”
The brief comments before reporters alongside Macron were largely cordial, except for one exchange in which the French president sought to correct Trump over his claims that Europe is being paid back for all of the economic and military assistance it has provided to Ukraine over the past three years.
“To be frank we paid 60% of the total defaults. And it was like the US loans guarantee grants, and we provided real money. To be clear. We have $230 billion frozen assets in Europe, Russian assets, but this is not as a collateral of the loan, because this is not our belonging,” he said.
“If, at the end of the day the negotiation, we will have this, Russia they’re ready to give it to us, it will be loan at the end of the day,” he added.
“If you believe that, it’s okay for me,” responded Trump. “They get their money back. We don’t, and now we do.”
