Ukraine and the U.S. have reached an agreement on a framework for a broad economic deal that would include access to Ukraine’s mineral resources, three senior Ukrainian officials said Tuesday. The officials, who were familiar with the matter, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. One of them said that Kyiv hoped that signing the agreement would ensure the continued flow of U.S. military support that Ukraine urgently needs.
“President Zelenskyy is going to be coming on Friday, that is now confirmed,” President Trump said Wednesday at the White House, at the start of his first full Cabinet meeting. He did not confirm that the terms of the agreement with Ukraine had been finalized, but one of the Ukrainian officials said the previous night that the deal could be signed as early as Friday and that plans were being drawn up for Zelenskyy to travel to Washington.
Another official said the agreement would provide an opportunity for Zelenskyy and Mr. Trump to discuss continued military aid to Ukraine, which is why Kyiv is eager to finalize the deal.
Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters earlier Wednesday in the Oval Office, said he’d heard that Zelenskyy was coming and added that “it’s okay with me, if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me.”
Mr. Trump called it “a very big deal,” adding that it could be worth a trillion dollars.
What do we know about the deal?
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that the “critical minerals deal and the rare earths deal, as President Trump has said, is absolutely pivotal. We’re very close to the finish line in getting that done.”
One of the Ukrainian officials said some technical details were still being worked out. However, the official said the draft does not include a contentious Trump administration proposal to give the U.S. $500 billion worth of profits from Ukraine’s mineral resources as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv. Zelenskyy had rejected that proposal, saying he would not sign off on any deal that “ten generations” of Ukrainians would be stuck paying for.
Instead, the U.S. and Ukraine would have joint ownership of a fund, and Ukraine would contribute 50% of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil, and gas to that fund. One official said the deal had better terms of investments and another one said that Kyiv had secured favorable amendments and viewed the outcome as “positive.”
The deal does not, however, include security guarantees. One official said that this would be something the two presidents would discuss when they meet.
“The main thing for me was that we are not a debtor,” Zelenskyy told journalists Wednesday, adding that it was “too early to talk about money,” as the final terms were still being hashed out.
It remained unclear Wednesday what share of the joint fund the U.S. would own or control.
Agreement after acrimony?
The progress in negotiating the deal comes after Mr. Trump and Zelenskyy traded sharp rhetoric last week about their differences over the matter.
Zelenskyy said he balked at signing off on a deal that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed during a visit to Kyiv earlier this month, and the Ukrainian leader objected again days later during a meeting in Munich with Vice President JD Vance because the American proposal did not include security guarantees.
Mr. Trump then called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” and claimed, incorrectly, that his support among voters was near rock-bottom.
But the two sides made significant progress during a three-day visit to Ukraine last week by retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
The idea was initially proposed last fall by Zelenskyy as part of his plan to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in future negotiations with Moscow.