Latest News

Sources say that the US and Ukraine are now planning to sign a mineral deal.

Sources say that the US and Ukraine are now planning to sign a mineral deal.

Four people with knowledge of the situation on Tuesday said that the U.S. administration under Donald Trump and Ukraine planned to sign a mineral deal, but it fell through following a disastrous Oval Office Meeting Friday during which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was ejected from the building.

Three sources confirmed that Trump told his advisers he planned to announce the agreement during his speech to Congress on Tuesday night. However, they cautioned that the deal was not yet signed and that it could change.

According to a Fox reporter's post on X, U.S. Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that there was no signing planned for the deal.

The White House has not responded to a comment request.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington and the Ukrainian Presidential Administration in Kyiv did not respond when asked for comments.

After a heated meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and Zelenskiy, the deal was put on ice on Friday. The Ukrainian leader left the White House immediately after the contentious encounter. Zelenskiy traveled to Washington for the signing of the deal.

In this meeting, Trump, and vice president JD Vance, reprimanded Zelenskiy for asking for more aid in front the U.S. press.

Trump stated, "You are gambling with World War Three."

According to a person familiar with the situation, U.S. officials spoke to officials in Kyiv in recent days about signing the mineral deal despite the Friday blow-up. They also urged Zelenskiy’s advisers convince the Ukrainian President to openly apologize to Trump.

Zelenskiy said on X Tuesday that Ukraine is ready to sign the agreement and called the Oval Office Meeting "regrettable."

Zelenskiy wrote in his blog that "our meeting at the White House in Washington on Friday did not go as it was intended." "Ukraine will come to the table to negotiate as soon as it is possible in order to bring lasting peace nearer."

Uncertainty remained about whether the agreement had changed. The agreement that was supposed to be signed by last week did not include any explicit guarantees of security for Ukraine, but it gave the U.S. a way to access revenues from Ukraine's mineral resources. The deal also included the Ukrainian government donating 50% of future monetization from any state-owned resources to a U.S.Ukraine-managed reconstruction investment fund.

Trump said in a press conference that Ukraine should be "more appreciative" of the agreement.

Trump said, "This country has stood by them through thick-and-thin." "We have given them more than Europe and Europe should give more than us," Trump said.

France, Britain, and perhaps other European countries offered to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine in case of a ceasefire. However they would need support from the U.S. Moscow has rejected the proposal for peacekeeping forces.

Daniel Fried, former senior White House official, and ambassador to Poland said that the process of getting the minerals agreement done was messy. But it would bring two solid victories for Trump: Zelenskiy’s statement of regret, and the agreement by Britain and France to provide boots on the ground and security.

"Trump should and can win. Fried, a fellow with the Atlantic Council, said that Fried would be able "to say that he... got the Europeans standing up for an issue of European Security, which they have never done before." (Reporting from Erin Banco, Gram Slattery, and Andrea Shalal at Washington; Additional reporting from Yuliia Dyesa in Kyiv. Editing by Don Durfee & David Gregorio).

(source: Reuters)