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The Trump administration is seeking new terms for US access to critical minerals and energy assets in Ukraine, widening its economic demands on Kyiv as it pushes for a peace deal with Russia.
Washington wants Kyiv to agree to detailed provisions about who owns and controls a joint investment fund, and to a broader scope, potentially covering US ownership of other economic assets such as Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, two Ukrainian officials said.
This would amount to a reopening of the yet unsigned minerals deal hatched days before presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy fell out in public at the White House.
Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Trump said the US was looking to sign deals on rare earths and minerals across the world, but that Ukraine was a special focus.
“We’re doing very well with regard to Ukraine and Russia, and one of the things we’re doing is signing a deal very shortly with respect to rare earths with Ukraine,” he said, but did not offer further details.
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Ukrainian officials said they were concerned about being pressured into unfavourable terms in a broader deal, especially after Washington temporarily suspended weapons deliveries and intelligence sharing with Kyiv earlier this month.
Trump and Zelenskyy on a call this week “discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants”, according to an account of the call from secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
“[President Trump] said that the United States could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” the summary added, with US ownership offering “the best protection” for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Zelenskyy told the FT during an online briefing with reporters on Wednesday that he had discussed with Trump just one nuclear facility: the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.
Located 650km south-east of Kyiv on the Dnipro river, the facility is under Russian military control since March 2022, just weeks after Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of the country. Its six reactors are currently in “cold shutdown” mode.
The Trump administration has argued that American economic investment in Ukraine is enough of a security guarantee to prevent Russia from launching a new invasion after any ceasefire.
Ukraine and the US reached a framework agreement in February on the joint development of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including oil and gas. The deal, dated February 25 and first reported by the FT, represented a scaled-back version of the Trump administration’s original proposal.
An earlier reference to a potential $500bn in revenues from mineral extraction had been omitted, while existing mineral projects already contributing to Ukraine’s public finances were also excluded.
A line was also added specifying that the US “supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace”. Zelenskyy had been seeking an explicit US guarantee of Ukrainian security in exchange for sharing profits from Kyiv’s rich natural resources.
However, the deal — which Kyiv regarded as satisfactory — remains unsigned as both sides navigate complex negotiations involving broader economic and security matters, said Ukrainian and US officials.
“We are ready to sign it,” said a senior Ukrainian official close to Zelenskyy. “It will be strange to ignore it.”
Two senior Ukrainian officials involved in negotiations with the US over Ukraine’s mineral resources said the Trump administration had not yet presented Kyiv with new terms.
“But I realise that . . . they’re working on a bigger agreement,” said one of the officials, who, like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said “an economic partnership related to critical minerals, energy and economic growth for both nations remains a discussion”, before adding: “we have moved beyond it at this point to focus on a broad ceasefire and path to lasting peace.”
The Ukrainians had wanted to move slowly and discuss the minerals deal first before involving other potential aspects of American investment.
The talks have raised deep concerns within Ukraine. “Since when does surrendering a strategic sector to a foreign country equal security?” Inna Sovsun, a Ukrainian opposition lawmaker, wrote on X. “Sounds more like a takeover than protection.”
Cartography by Steven Bernard
