Trump says Zelenskyy to visit U.S. to sign critical rare minerals deal on Friday

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would visit the United States on Friday to sign a deal on critical rare earth minerals.

Referring to the trip as “confirmed,” Trump said during his first cabinet meeting: “We’re going to be signing an agreement which will be a very big agreement, that’ll be on rare earth and other things.”

Trump also noted the U.S.’ higher foreign aid contributions to Ukraine in comparison to Europe, and said the continent should “step up and do more than they’re doing.” Continued financial support for Ukraine from the U.S., its biggest biggest military backer, was already politically contentious and has appeared on the brink since Trump’s return to the White House.

Trump said Wednesday he was “not going to give security guarantees [for Ukraine] beyond very much, we’re going to have Europe do that,” but added that there was an “automatic security” from a U.S. partnership on rare earth minerals because “nobody is going to be messing with our guys.”

“The previous administration put us in a very bad position but we’ve been able to make a deal where we’re going to get our money back and we’re going to get a lot of money in the future, and I think that’s appropriate because we have taxpayers that shouldn’t be footing the bill, and they shouldn’t be footing the bill more than the Europeans are paying,” Trump said.

“It’s all been worked out, we’re happy about it and I think that very importantly we’re going to be able to make a deal.”

Officials in Kyiv said Wednesday that Ukraine and the U.S. have prepared a draft deal over access to Kyiv’s deposits of rare earth minerals and a joint investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Zelenskyy addressed media reports this week that a preliminary deal had been reached which would see the U.S. and Ukraine jointly developing Ukraine’s mineral resources, including oil and gas.

Describing the draft deal as a “framework agreement,” Zelenskyy told reporters that the agreement included the intention to create a joint investment fund with the U.S., into which Ukraine would contribute 50% of all revenue earned from the future monetization of its natural resources assets.

The fund will then invest in projects related to Ukraine’s reconstruction and infrastructure. Zelenskyy said he hoped a deal on security guarantees would follow.

Earlier media reports suggested a deal between the two countries had been reached with the Financial Times, which first reported the agreement Tuesday, reporting that the U.S. had dropped demands for a right to $500 billion in potential revenue from the deal. That has not been confirmed by Ukraine.

Trump on Tuesday said the agreement offered Kyiv billions of dollars in aid and “lots of equipment and military equipment and the right to fight on, and originally, the right to fight.”

“As of today, this agreement is called the ‘Agreement on Establishing the Rules and Conditions of the Investment Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.’ This is a preliminary agreement that will have legal force. It provides for the creation of an investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine, which Ukraine and the United States will jointly manage and fill,” he said, according to comments reported by RBC-Ukraine news agency.

“The preamble of the agreement very clearly states that taking into account the desire of the American people to invest with Ukraine in a free, sovereign, and secure state, this is the beginning of the agreement. I am directly quoting the text, and this is important for us to understand the purpose of the agreement. The security nature of this agreement is the number one priority for our country, the government, and the President,” he said.

Yuriy Sak, an advisor to Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries, told CNBC on Wednesday that “the presidents will most probably meet on Friday” and will “finalize the deal,” which he described as a starting point for further economic cooperation and investment.

“It will be a framework agreement and it will be part of the broader negotiating process,”‘ he told CNBC.

“Of course, it’s not going to be an agreement that will comprehensively decide all the issues, but it will be, I repeat, a framework agreement, which will then be part of the process which will be expanded going forward,” he noted.

It’s unclear how much mineral wealth lies within Ukraine, although one Ukrainian official from the Economy Ministry reportedly said at the weekend that $350 billion worth of natural resources are located in Russian-occupied territories, the Kyiv Independent reported Sunday.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna, reportedly led negotiations between Washington and Kyiv on the mineral deal and told the FT on Tuesday that “we have heard multiple times from the U.S administration that it’s part of a bigger picture.”

“Ukraine, I will say they’re very brave, and they’re good soldiers, but without the United States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short time,” Trump added on Tuesday.

Ukrainian ministers are expected to recommend on Wednesday that the deal be signed, sources familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg, but Lisa Yasko, a Ukrainian lawmaker within Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party, told CNBC that lawmakers knew very little about the deal, other than what was being reported in the media.

She also expressed concern that the backdrop to any agreement was “emotional” and tense.

“We don’t really know any final information about the deal. We actually hear everything from the media,” she told CNBC’s “Street Signs” on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s leadership has come under sustained pressure to sign a deal with the U.S. since President Trump’s inauguration in January. The president initially proposed that Kyiv should grant the U.S. 50% ownership of its rare earth minerals as recompense for military aid it has given Ukraine. Trump has also previously claimed in an interview that a deal would give the U.S. access to $500 billion worth of rare earth minerals and that this would be payback for aid already received by Kyiv.

Ukraine’s president, Zelenskyy, disputed the amount of wartime aid the U.S. has given Ukraine, putting the figure at around $100 billion. Independent analysis by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy puts the amount of U.S. support committed to Ukraine at 114.2 billion euros, or $119.5 billion.

“From Trump I want an understanding what Ukraine can get, as well as security guarantees and contingent after the hot stage of war is ended,” Zelenskyy told the Ukraine: Year 2025 forum on Sunday, on the eve of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“An agreement should be win-win for American businesses and Ukraine’s people,” he added, in comments translated by NBC News. “I’m not signing something that 10 generations of Ukrainians will be paying off.”

“About [the] $500 billion. Let’s deal with the figure first. I know we had $100 billion. That’s a fact. I’m not going to acknowledge $500 billion. …The second thing, to be honest, I’m not even ready to fix 100 billion. I’ll explain why. Because we shouldn’t recognize grants as debts,” he said.

Zelenskyy had also noted that any assistance Ukraine was still receiving was a legacy of the previous U.S. administration under Joe Biden, adding that “as far I understand, the deal is that there is a condition for a new assistance.”

In separate comments last week, Zelenskyy said that he could not “sell” his country and that an initial proposal from the U.S. had not offered Ukraine the security guarantees it sought.

The Ukrainian leader last week reportedly ordered his ministers not to sign off on any deal, saying the proposal that had been put forward was too focused on U.S. interests and offered Ukraine very little in return.

– CNBC’s Jenni Reid contributed to this report.