Trump confirms he will sign rare-earths deal with Zelenskyy

US President Donald Trump has confirmed that he intends to sign an agreement with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the mining of rare earths and other minerals in Ukraine, Report informs via TASS.

"President Zelenskyy is coming to see me on Friday, Friday morning, and we're going to be signing really a very important agreement for both sides, because it's really going to get us into that country. We'll be working there. We'll have a lot of people working there," he told reporters at the beginning of his meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

"In that sense, it's very good. It's a backstop," Trump pointed out, adding that the US is in dire need of rare earth metals.

Washington and Kyiv are working on signing an agreement on Ukrainian minerals, in which Trump expressed interest in early February. Previously, Zelenskyy refused to sign the document, insisting on the inclusion of a clause on security guarantees for Ukraine. At the same time, Trump and Zelenskyy seriously disagree on the issue of funds spent by Washington to help Kyiv and Ukraine's obligations to repay them.

According to Ukrainska Pravda, the document approved by the Ukrainian government talks about plans to create an investment fund, but does not specify a number of details related to its activities. In particular, it does not specify how the fund will be managed in practice, what powers the US representatives will have, and what its ownership structure will be.