US seeks to reopen terms of Ukraine minerals deal

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, Report informs referring to Financial Times.

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.

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.