During a closed-door meeting Wednesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected the Trump administration’s offer to give up half of the country’s mineral riches in exchange for US help, according to five persons informed on the plan or with direct knowledge of the talks. According to two European officials, the unprecedented agreement would have given the US a 50% stake in all of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including graphite, lithium, and uranium, in exchange for past and future assistance in Kyiv’s military effort against Russian invaders. A Ukrainian official and an energy expert informed on the idea claimed the Trump administration was also interested in Ukrainian energy resources.

Negotiations are still ongoing, according to another Ukrainian official, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the discussions. However, the breadth of the proposal and the contentious negotiations surrounding it highlight the deepening divide between Ukraine and the United States over both sustained US backing and a possible end to the war. The request for half of Ukraine’s minerals was made on Wednesday, when U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv, marking the first visit by a Trump administration official to Ukraine. The Treasury Department refuses to comment on any negotiations.
The Ukrainians decided to analyze the facts and submit a counterproposal when Zelenskyy visited the Munich Security Conference on Friday and spoke with Vice President JD Vance, according to the official. It is unclear whether a counterproposal was presented. Speaking to reporters in Munich on Saturday, Zelenskyy admitted that he had rejected a proposal from the Trump administration. He would not detail the parameters of the agreement, other than to state that it did not contain security guarantees from Washington. “I don’t see this connection in the document,” the man replied. “In my opinion, it’s not ready to protect us, our interests.”
The security assurance is critical because Ukrainians believe the US and UK have failed to meet their commitments to defend the country under an agreement reached at the conclusion of the Cold War, when Ukraine surrendered Russian nuclear weapons on its soil. European diplomats had another objection. They protested that the negotiations reeked of colonialism, a time when Western countries exploited smaller or weaker nations for resources. In Munich, a schism emerged between the United States and its European partners over the Trump administration’s ambitions to end the conflict. Many of them stated that they were more bewildered than before they arrived.

A Ukrainian official and an energy expert briefed on Bessent’s offer said it covered not just half of Ukraine’s minerals, but also other natural resources such as oil and gas. The official also said the proposal gave the United States a claim to half of Ukraine’s earnings from resource extraction and the sale of new extraction licenses.

Acceding to these demands would deprive the Ukrainian government of millions of dollars in revenue that are currently almost entirely invested in the country’s defense. In the first half of last year, Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas giant, reported a profit exceeding $500 million.

The idea of leveraging Ukraine’s mineral resources began to take shape last summer. Zelenskyy’s government, trying to appeal to President Donald Trump’s business-minded approach and fearing he would follow through on his promises to cut off military and financial aid to Ukraine, decided to pitch a deal that would essentially trade Ukrainian critical minerals for American aid.

During a September meeting in New York, the Ukrainian president proposed the concept to Trump, and it was supported by prominent political heavyweights such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. It also came after US businessmen, including Trump’s wealthy friend Ronald S. Lauder, expressed interest in investing in Ukraine’s mineral resources. Ukraine had always stated that access to its natural resources will be exchanged for substantial security guarantees from the United States. However, one of the Ukrainian officials claimed that the proposal made no such pledge, instead presenting access to Ukraine’s resources as overdue payback for previous American military and financial assistance. Ukraine has 109 important mineral resources, including those with ores of titanium, lithium, and uranium, according to a list compiled by the Kyiv School of Economics, in addition to oil and natural gas fields. Some, though, are in territory already under Russian occupation or close to the front line.

Their worth is questionable. Aside from the risks of a repeat Russian invasion following a ceasefire, which a deal with the US is designed to mitigate, deeply ingrained issues in Ukraine’s business climate have hampered investment throughout much of the country’s post-independence history. These include esoteric regulations and insider trading by Ukrainian entrepreneurs and officials, which may limit any benefits from the agreement. Even before the war, few investors were interested in Ukrainian mining deals. However, there is precedent for Ukraine to combine security and economics with the United States under Trump. In his first term, in 2017, he reached a contract for Ukraine to acquire coal from Pennsylvania to replace coal from mines in Ukraine destroyed under Russian control following the 2014 invasion

Kostiantyn Yelisieiev, a former diplomat and deputy chief of staff to Ukraine’s president at the time the agreement was reached, said that the pact allowed Trump to claim that he had protected employment in Pennsylvania, a swing state. For Kyiv, the agreement paved the door for Trump to deliver lethal military help to Ukraine by approving the sale of Javelin anti-tank missiles. According to Yelisieiev, Ukrainian officials at the time considered it a success. “It confirmed that Trump is not a person of values, but a person of interests and money,” he said, adding that Ukraine may be able to cooperate with him on security issues. However, the transaction being discussed today, he said, enhances the approach in ways that could That might give Russia a propaganda victory by framing the conflict as a battle for natural resources rather than Ukrainian independence or democracy. “It’s more important to say this is about protecting democracies and defeating Putin,” he said, alluding to Russian President Vladimir Putin.