The US President Donald Trump said that Ukraine has "essentially agreed" to transfer half a trillion dollars worth of rare earth metals to Washington as payment for American military aid.
This is reported by the New York Post.
"They have extremely valuable land in terms of rare earths [metals], in terms of oil and gas, other things. I want our money to be protected because weʼre spending hundreds of billions of dollars [on Ukraine]," Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier.
The leader insisted that the United States should have access to Ukraineʼs resources regardless of whether a peace deal with Russia is reached. Trump claims that the "over $300 billion" Washington has provided to Kyiv far exceeds other countriesʼ contributions to the Ukrainian military.
"They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, they may not be Russian someday. I told them [Ukrainian representatives] that I wanted to get the equivalent of about $500 billion worth of rare earth [metals], and they essentially agreed to do it," the president said.
According to the publication, the other day Volodymyr Zelensky supported a mutual agreement with the United States on the supply of resources in exchange for security guarantees as part of a potential peace settlement.
What preceded
On February 3, the US President Donald Trump said he was considering exchanging Ukrainian rare earth minerals for more American aid.
"Weʼre looking to make a deal with Ukraine where theyʼre going to provide what weʼre giving them with their rare earth minerals and other things," Trump said.
These minerals are needed to make smartphones, batteries, magnets, lasers, and other modern technologies. Although they are called rare earths, they are actually not that rare, but they are difficult to extract and purify. These include lithium, graphite, uranium, and titanium.
In 2023, the Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko said that Ukraine has the largest reserves of lithium, titanium and significant deposits of other minerals in Europe.
- In the fall of 2024, Volodymyr Zelensky presented a plan for Ukraineʼs victory over Russia. The plan contains five points. The fourth of them, the economic one, proposes concluding an agreement "on the joint protection of critical resources available in Ukraine, joint investment and use". Among such resources, the president named uranium, titanium, graphite and lithium, and estimated their value at "trillions of dollars".
- Babel asked two experts to explain the basics of this topic: journalist Volodymyr Boyko, founder of the publication nadra.info, and Doctor of Geological Sciences Natalia Bariatska, an expert of the State Commission of Ukraine on Mineral Resources.
- President Zelensky emphasized that Kyiv is open to partnership not only on issues of minerals, but also nuclear energy.
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