The governments of Ukraine and the US have signed off on a watered down and much fairer minerals deal, giving US President Donald Trump a PR boost and ensuring Kyiv will continue to have some access to US support on April 30.

“Thanks to @POTUS @realDonaldTrump’s tireless efforts to secure a lasting peace, I am glad to announce the signing of today’s historic economic partnership agreement between the United States and Ukraine establishing the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund to help accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery. Economic security is national security,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on social media.

The two countries have agreed to establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund to spur Ukraine's economic recovery from its war with Russia that has much better terms than the previous versions that were called little more than a demand for reparations by the US from Ukraine for funding its war with Russia over the last three years.

Bessent signed the document with Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and said it showed both sides were “committed to lasting peace and prosperity” in Ukraine.

“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Bessent said in a statement. “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.”

There are reports that the US has already cleared the way for a delivery of $50mn worth of arms shipments to Kyiv via direct commercial sales. Previously, the Biden administration sent arms to Ukraine in the form of grants that didn’t have to be paid for. The permission is the first of its kind since Trump returned to the White House over 100 days ago and comes just weeks after the administration paused all Ukraine-related military aid for review. Trying to break the impasse on US arms deliveries, Zelenskiy offered in April to pay for a $50bn package of weapons supplies going forward to keep Ukraine supplied; an offer Trump rejected.

Negotiations between the two had bogged down over details and stalled last week at a crucial meeting in London. The minerals deal comes as part of a wider negotiations for a ceasefire in hostilities in Ukraine that remain stalled.

Trump last week presented Ukraine and its European allies with a seven-point “final offer” peace plan that was rejected. Zelenskiy answered with a counteroffer peace plan that starts with a complete unconditional ceasefire, but the Kremlin, while saying it was open to such a deal, has yet to halt its bombardment of Ukraine and if anything has intensified its attacks while the talks have been ongoing.

Asked by journalists after the signing if the US was going to follow through on Trump’s threat of walking away from Ukraine, Bessent replied, “I don’t think so.”

The US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund recognises the "significant financial and material support" the US has given Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, and the deal would help "unlock Ukraine's growth assets" according to a State Department statement.

The statement also shows a hardening of the US position towards Russia, which has been very mild until now. It includes a reference to "Russia's full-scale invasion". Previously, the White House has been reluctant to call the Kremlin out as the perpetrator of the unprovoked aggression in Ukraine.

Ukraine's Svyrydenko flew to Washington to ink the deal and said in a post on X that the new fund would "attract global investment into our country".

The progress comes after a tense one-on-one meeting between Trump and Zelenskiy during the Pope’s funeral at the weekend where he sought to bring Trump closer to Ukraine’s position. While details of the conversation have not been released, Trump made some tougher comments criticising Russia’s missile attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine following the meeting and repeated suggestion that he might impose new harsh sanctions on Russia if a ceasefire was not agreed. Zelenskiy said the meeting could be “historic” if the ideas discussed at the meeting were implemented.

Trump said he had pressed Zelensky at Vatican City to sign off on the minerals deal during a phone interview with NewsNation network on April 30.

"I was telling him that it's a very good thing if we can produce a deal that you sign it," he said, "because Russia is much bigger and much stronger. Russia is just chugging forward."

The deal hands Trump an important PR win as he completes his first 100 days in office but has seen his support in the polls tank, falling below 40%, the worst result for any president’s honeymoon period in over 80 years.

“The mineral deal between Ukraine and the United States has been signed. It’s a major political and diplomatic win for Ukraine and the U.S. It gives Trump a domestic political boost — and that translates, I expect, into a more positive attitude toward Ukraine,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, rector of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) and former economics minister said in a social media post. “Ukraine held the line. Despite enormous pressure, every overreaching demand from the other side was dropped. The final deal looks fair.”

Softer terms

The terms of the deal have been significantly softened from the previous five versions. The deal will grant the US privileged access to new projects in aluminium, graphite, oil and natural gas. Svyrydenko said the resources would remain the property of Ukraine.

Talk of repayment of “debt” to the US has been dropped. Previously Trump was demanding that Kyiv pay $500bn to the US for the cost of US support to Ukraine over the last three years. More specifically, the deal says that money accumulated in the fund will be used to pay for only new arms deliveries to Ukraine and not the legacy deliveries over the last three years.

As bne IntelliNews reported, Ukraine doesn’t have any significant deposits of rare earth metals (REMs), nor are the deposits of critical minerals worth trillions of dollars. However, it does have important deposits of some minerals such as lithium, graphite, coal and copper amongst other things. Nevertheless, most of resources remain undeveloped and will require hundreds of millions of dollars of investment to exploit.

A requirement that the US has the right of first refusal on all new projects has also been dropped. The partnership will be equal, on a 50:50 basis, Svyrydenko added, but must still be ratified by the Rada lawmakers in Kyiv before taking effect.

“There’s no requirement to sell everything to the U.S., or to channel all investment through the fund. The obligation is to give the fund fair market access to future projects,” said Mylovanov.

Svyrydenko said there were some promises of more military support as part of the deal, including the delivery of new Patriot missiles that have been essential to providing Ukraine with air defence cover against Russia’s continuous bombardment of the country.

Under the terms of the deal, the US gets first claim on profits transferred into the Reconstruction Investment Fund that would be jointly managed by both nations. The fund is intended in part to reimburse the US for future military assistance to Ukraine and is financed by 50% of the revenues from new licenses in projects relating to critical materials, oil and gas, Bloomberg reports. Importantly, the US has dropped requirements for revenues from existing oil and gas operations to be contributed to the fund.

The deal also specifies that the Reconstruction Investment Fund should not threaten or interfere with Kyiv’s ambition to join the EU – a key strategic goal for Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin).

One lacuna is that the deal still offers no direct security guarantees by the US, though Svyrydenko said on social media that it “reaffirms the United States of America commitment to Ukraine’s security, recovery, and reconstruction.” Trump’s position on security is that the mere presence of US companies working on Ukrainian soil will be enough to deter new attacks by Russia on Ukraine.

“We made a deal where our money is secure, where we can start digging and doing what we have to do,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting on April 30. “It’s also good for them because you’ll have an American presence at the site, and the American presence will keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging.”

Attention will now return to concluding a ceasefire deal with Russia. The minerals deal appears to put Zelenskiy and Ukraine back in Trump’s good graces, at least for now.

“With the signing of Donald Trump’s extortion of Ukraine deal, even as Ukraine continues to defend itself from Russia’s illegal invasion, I hope the administration can now turn to the real roadblock for peace: Vladimir Putin. President Zelenskyy has shown time and again that he is willing to negotiate to work towards a sustainable peace; now is the time for Trump to put the pressure on Putin where it belongs,” Representative Gregory Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement following the inking of the minerals deal.