US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not sign a mineral agreement on Friday, the White House confirmed.
The conversation in the Oval Office on Friday began with the usual pleasantries but began to go downhill after Vice President JD Vance accused Zelenskiy of being ungrateful for U.S. support.
The two sides then cancelled the signing of the minerals agreement and a joint press conference. In a social media post after Zelensky left the White House, Trump criticised Zelensky for disrespecting the United States, for having no intention of promoting peace, and for attending the talks because he felt that the US involvement would give him a ‘significant advantage’.
According to the New York Times, Trump stressed during the talks that the mineral agreement between the United States and Ukraine was ‘very fair’ and that he had already met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that a ceasefire agreement was imminent.
Just a few days ago, it is reported that U.S. and Ukraine will jointly set up a fund which Ukrainia’s oil, gas, minerals and other resources will be put into the fund for 50 per cent of the future earnings. The U.S. will maximise its ownership of the economic benefits generated by the fund, using some of the revenues for reinvestment in Ukraine. The agreement no longer includes Ukraine’s injection of $500 billion into the U.S.-owned fund, and it also no longer requires the Ukrainian side to reimburse any future U.S. aid to Ukraine in twice that amount.
Ukraine is home to more than 100 key mineral resources, including titanium, which is widely used in the construction and aerospace industries, and lithium, which is used to make batteries for electric cars.
However, industry veterans say there are a number of obstacles to developing rare earth projects in Ukraine in the foreseeable future, including a lack of rare earth processing capacity and financial investment. China dominates the rare earth industry, especially in the processing sector. China’s dominance of the sector has resulted in consistently low rare earth prices, creating challenges for other market participants who struggle to attract the large amounts of capital needed to develop new mining projects.
And a report by the British Geological Survey’s Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre states that there is a great deal of uncertainty about just how rich Ukraine’s critical mineral reserves are.
