By Jane Lytvynenko, Alexander Ward and Ian Lovett
KYIV—Ukraine has agreed to a mineral-rights deal with the U.S. that could be finalized as soon as Friday at a White House meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
People close to the negotiations said the text had now been agreed, and the U.S. had dropped its previous demand for the right to $500 billion in potential revenue from the development of Ukraine’s mineral resources.
“It’s a very big deal. It could be a trillion-dollar deal,” Trump told reporters Tuesday. “We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Ukraine and Russia fighting a war that should have never ever happened.”
The signing ceremony would be a personal victory for Zelensky, who has been pushing for a face-to-face meeting with Trump but has instead had to watch as the U.S. opened discussions with Moscow about how to end the war—excluding Ukraine. The Ukrainian president had refused to sign the mineral-rights deal presented by a lower-level official, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Zelensky’s refusal to sign set off a rapid deterioration in the relationship between Washington and Kyiv.
The Ukrainian president had said for months that Ukraine’s allies in the war against Russia could have access to the country’s mineral resources. However, he said he couldn’t sign an agreement that didn’t include security guarantees for Ukraine. Officials across Europe also expressed shock at some of the demands the U.S. had made in the offer, including the right to up to $500 billion in revenue from mineral development, which is far more than the U.S. has contributed to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began.
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