Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is reportedly set to arrive at the White House on Friday to secure a deal to give the United States mineral rights access in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, President Trump told reporters that he heard Zelensky was visiting Washington to finalize the deal.
“I hear that he’s coming on Friday. Certainly it’s OK with me if he’d like to. And he would like to sign it together with me. And I understand that’s a big deal, very big deal,” President Trump told reporters, per The Guardian.
The exact details of the deal remain unknown. However, the initial U.S. demand for $500 billion in future mineral revenue from Ukraine was reportedly axed.
The news of Zelensky’s intention to ink a deal comes just after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a joint partnership with the U.S. to explore rare earth mineral deposits in Russia. As reported in The Dallas Express, Putin stressed that Russia has substantially more mineral resources than Ukraine.
Even still, Putin said he was not concerned about a potential agreement between Kyiv and Washington despite Russia’s adversarial relationship with Ukraine.
When asked what Ukraine would get in return for the mineral access, Trump told the reporter the country would obtain “military equipment.”
“Without the United States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time,” Trump said to reporters, per The Hill.
Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister who has led the negotiations, said the minerals agreement is just one part of a broader negotiation.
“We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” Stefanishyna told the Financial Times.
The initial agreement Trump had proposed would have seen Ukraine repaying the U.S. for aid the country has received since fighting in Eastern Europe began in 2022. The latest version, seen by the Financial Times, outlines the creation of a fund where half of all mineral resource revenue, including oil and gas, would be diverted.
The agreement does not specify the stake the U.S. would have in the fund, if any, nor does it outline any security guarantees the U.S. would offer Ukraine.