Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected a US bid to take ownership of around 50 per cent of the rights to his country’s rare earth minerals and is trying to negotiate a better deal, according to several people familiar with the matter, APA reports citing Financial Times.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered Zelenskyy the deal during a visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, which came after President Donald Trump suggested the US was owed half a trillion dollars’ worth of Ukraine’s resources in exchange for its assistance to the war-torn country.
Zelenskyy wants American and European security guarantees to be tied directly to any deal on the mineral reserves, according to four people familiar with the US-Ukraine negotiations.
He is also keen for other countries, including EU states, to be involved in future natural resource exploitation.
But the deal proposed by Trump and delivered by Bessent only referenced the US getting Ukrainian resources in exchange for past military assistance, and did not contain any proposals for similar future assistance, according to a person familiar with the document. “We are still talking,” Zelenskyy said in Munich on Saturday. “I have had different dialogues.”
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference, Zelenskyy said it was “not in our interests today . . . not in the interests of sovereign Ukraine” to agree to the US deal as it currently stands.
A senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times that Kyiv was “trying to negotiate a better deal”.
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