Trump says Ukraine has ‘essentially agreed’ to allow the US access to $500B in rare earth minerals
President Trump claims that Ukraine has “essentially agreed” to give the US half a trillion dollars worth of rare earth minerals as payment for the military aid Washington has provided Kyiv.
“They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earth [minerals], in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things. I want to have our money secured, because we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars [in Ukraine],” Trump told Fox News “Special Report” host Bret Baier in an interview taped ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Trump, 78, insisted that the US should have access to Ukraine’s natural resources regardless of whether a peace deal between Russia and the former Soviet state can be successfully negotiated, arguing that the “more than $300 billion” the US has provided Ukraine dwarfs what other nations have contributed to the war effort.
“They may make a deal. They may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday. But we’re going to have all this money in [Ukraine] and I say, I want it back,” the president said.
“I told them that I want the equivalent of like $500 billion worth of rare earth [minerals], and they’ve essentially agreed to do that,” Trump revealed.
“I said to them, ‘We have to – We have to get something. We can’t continue to pay this money.’” Trump continued, arguing that continuing to provide aid to war-torn Ukraine for nothing would be “stupid.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday signaled support for a reciprocal resource deal with the US in exchange for security guarantees as part of a potential peace settlement.
“If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelensky told Reuters. “We need to stop Putin and protect what we have — a very rich Dnipro region [in] central Ukraine.”
Ukraine is home to roughly 5% of the world’s mineral resources, with rich deposits of titanium, uranium, iron, manganese and lithium — as well as rare earth minerals that are considered vital to US national security.
“I think it’s going to happen,” Trump said of a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
“I think we’ve made tremendous progress in the last week. We’re dealing with the Russians. We’re dealing with the Ukrainians. I think there’s going to be something,” the president insisted.
A US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance and Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, is expected to meet with Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference in Germany later this and discuss how to end the nearly three-year-long war.
