Ukraine announces minerals deal with US, no security guarantee

Ukraine said on Wednesday that it had reached a framework agreement with the United States on jointly developing Ukraine’s natural resources including rare earths, critical minerals, oil and gas.

Kyiv sees the deal as vital to keeping Donald Trump engaged, after the U.S. president sided with Russia in the war during his first weeks in office. According to the agreement, Kyiv would hand some of the revenue from its mineral resources to the United States, but it has received no U.S. security guarantees in return.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is desperate to get Western partners, most importantly the United States, to commit to such guarantees in order to deter further aggression from Russia in the future. Washington has resisted that pressure so far, although some of Ukraine’s European allies have discussed the possibility of deploying foreign soldiers there.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal described Wednesday’s agreement as “preliminary”. Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that Zelenskiy would travel to Washington on Friday to sign an agreement on rare earth minerals and other topics.

How much of its resources Ukraine still controls

The war has caused widespread damage across Ukraine, and Russia now controls around a fifth of its territory.

The bulk of Ukraine’s coal deposits, which powered its steel industry before the war, are concentrated in the east and have been lost.

About 40% of Ukraine’s metal resources are now under Russian occupation, according to estimates by Ukrainian think-tanks We Build Ukraine and the National Institute of Strategic Studies, citing data up to the first half of 2024. They provided no detailed breakdown.

Since then, Russian troops have continued to advance steadily in the eastern Donetsk region. In January, Ukraine closed its only coking coal mine outside the city of Pokrovsk, which Moscow’s forces are trying to capture.

Russia has occupied at least two Ukrainian lithium deposits during the war — one in Donetsk and another in the Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast. Kyiv still controls lithium deposits in the central Kyrovohrad region.

The terms of Ukraine’s new mineral deal with the US

The framework of the minerals deal Ukraine is expected to sign on with the U.S. on Friday broadly outlines that Ukraine and the United States will jointly develop Ukraine’s deposits of rare earths and critical minerals — key components in high-tech devices — as well as its oil and gas. It also stipulates:

• The countries will establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund to collect and reinvest revenues from Ukrainian resources. Representatives from both countries will jointly manage the fund.
• Ukraine will contribute to the fund 50% of revenues earned from Ukrainian state-owned natural resources.
• Contributions to the fund will be reinvested in Ukraine to promote “the safety, security and prosperity of Ukraine”.
• The United States will provide a long-term financial commitment to the development of a “stable and economically prosperous Ukraine.”
• The fund will aim to invest in Ukrainian projects and attract investment in public and private assets including natural resources, infrastructure, ports and state-owned enterprises.
• The agreement will include “concrete steps to establish lasting peace, and to strengthen economic security resilience.”
• The U.S. government will support Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace. There is no mention of U.S. security guarantees.

The draft, seen by Reuters, says that the agreement will be signed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

What’s behind the US deal

One of the main drivers of the U.S. pressure campaign to lock Ukraine into a minerals deal is the Trump administration’s focus on China.

China, with whom Trump has threatened a trade war, is the world's largest producer of rare earths, which are used to make magnets found in electric vehicles, weaponry and electronics.

While the United States created the rare earths industry in World War Two and U.S. military scientists developed the most widely-used type of rare earth magnet, China has slowly grown to control the entire sector the past 30 years.

The U.S. is particularly exposed to Chinese imports of rare earths, which made up 70% of its total imports according to a 2025 report from the U.S. Geological Survey. The United States has only one rare earths mine and has no capability to process rare earth minerals.