The U.S. and Ukraine just signed this big deal about sharing money made from selling minerals and rare earths in Ukraine. Trump says it’s supposed to help keep the U.S. invested in Ukraine’s defense, and also help rebuild the country if he manages to get a peace deal with Russia.
This minerals deal had been dragging on for months. It almost fell apart right before the signing. But now it’s done, and part of it sets up something called the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund.
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Trump’s people say that fund is going to start paying back the $175 billion or so the U.S. has spent helping Ukraine since the war began.
The deal aims to repay billions in US aid
Move seals a deal to create a fund the Trump administration says will begin to repay roughly $175bn provided to Ukraine.
Trump presents it as a pathway to peace and prosperity
“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” said Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, in a statement.
“President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine. And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
Ukraine sees the fund as a step toward global investment
Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, confirmed in a social media post that she had signed the agreement on Wednesday.
“Together with the United States, we are creating the fund that will attract global investment into our country,” she wrote.
Some details of the agreement remain undisclosed
They haven’t released all the parts of the deal yet.
We still don’t know how the investment fund is going to work or how the profits will be split between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Critics say the deal exploits Ukraine’s vulnerability
Not everyone’s thrilled about it.
Some folks say the U.S. is kind of taking advantage — basically making future aid depend on Ukraine giving away a chunk of its natural resources.
The signing was nearly derailed at the last minute
It was kind of a mess leading up to the signing.
No one really knew if it would actually happen. The U.S. was apparently putting a lot of pressure on Ukraine to agree to more stuff last-minute — things like how the investment fund would be set up. If not, they were told to just “go back home.”
Ukraine faced pressure to accept all terms
The Financial Times said Bessent’s team had told Svyrydenko, who was reportedly en route to Washington DC, to “be ready to sign all agreements, or go back home”.
Bessent later said the US was ready to sign, though Ukraine had made some last-minute changes.
Ukraine resisted rushed additional agreements
Reuters reported that Ukraine believed the two supplementary agreements — reportedly on an investment fund and a technical document — required more work.
The original US proposal was seen as a major overreach
Apparently, Ukraine actually came up with the idea first, hoping it would get Trump’s support by offering some business potential.
But then Trump’s people hit them with a plan in January that made it sound like Ukraine would have to hand over most of its mineral resources without getting much back.
Ukraine sought legal advice to improve the deal
Earlier this month, it was revealed that the Ukrainian justice ministry had hired US law firm Hogan Lovells to advise on the negotiations over the deal, according to filings with the US Foreign Agents Registration Act registry.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, on Wednesday described the deal as “truly a good, equal and beneficial international agreement on joint investments in the development and recovery of Ukraine”.
