Ukraine and the US have reached an agreement on a framework for a broad economic deal that would include access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals, three senior Ukrainian officials say.
The officials, who were familiar with the matter, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.
One of them said that Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of US military support that Ukraine urgently needs.
The agreement could be signed as early as Friday and plans are being drawn up for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to travel to Washington to meet US President Donald Trump, according to one of the Ukrainian officials.
Another official said the agreement would provide an opportunity for Zelenskiy and Trump to discuss continued military aid to Ukraine, which is why Kyiv is eager to finalise the deal.
Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said he’d heard that Zelenskiy was coming and added that “it’s okay with me, if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me”.
Trump called it “a very big deal”, adding that it could be worth a trillion dollars.
According to one Ukrainian official, some technical details are still to be worked out.
However, the draft does not include a contentious Trump administration proposal to give America $US500 billion ($A787 billion) worth of profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv.
Instead, the US and Ukraine would have joint ownership of a fund, and Ukraine would in the future contribute 50 per cent of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil, and gas.
One official said the deal had better terms of investments and another one said that Kyiv secured favourable amendments and viewed the outcome as “positive”.
The deal does not, however, include security guarantees. One official said that this would be something the two presidents would discuss when they meet.
The progress in negotiating the deal comes after Trump and Zelenskiy traded sharp rhetoric last week about their differences over the matter.
Zelenskiy said he balked at signing off on a deal that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed during a visit to Kyiv earlier in February. The Ukrainian leader objected again days later during a meeting in Munich with Vice President JD Vance because the American proposal did not include security guarantees.
Trump then called Volodymyr Zelenskiy “a dictator without elections” and claimed his support among voters was near rock-bottom.
But the two sides made significant progress during a three-day visit to Ukraine last week by retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
With Reuters
