President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are looking to settle all outstanding debts and bring the Russian invasion of Ukraine to a close with a sweetheart deal.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been sent to Ukraine for a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky to continue negotiations toward a plan that would trade rare earth minerals and other perks for U.S. help in ending Russia’s devastating war.
“This War MUST and WILL END SOON — Too much Death and Destruction,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social after announcing Bessent’s travel.
He added, “The U.S. has spent BILLIONS of Dollars Globally, with little to show. WHEN AMERICA IS STRONG, THE WORLD IS AT PEACE.”
While the trade sounds like an Art of the Deal maneuver, the swap was a bespoke incentive cooked up by Zelensky’s camp to win Trump’s support.
“If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal,” Zelensky told Reuters last week.
The Trump administration is claiming that the Ukrainian government is essentially committed to trading $500 billion in rare earth minerals for aid ending Russia’s invasion.
“You can come up with a deal, and that’s what [Trump] has the Treasury looking at: ‘OK, how do you make a deal where aid is predicated off of the payback [of] precious metals?’” retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, U.S. special envoy, told the New York Post last week.
Ukraine is rich in a variety of highly valuable minerals sought by the United States, including lithium, titanium, nickel, lanthanum, neodymium, cerium, cobalt, graphite, and more. The Trump administration claims there are certain underexploited deposits with values in the trillions.
“When we walked out of the Iraq War, we don’t have a single oil contract in Iraq proper — they’re all in Kurdistan. Nothing. All the sacrifice went to no one,” Kellogg said. “So I think the president is taking an economical look: ‘If you want to do this, there’s got to be something good for the American people,’ and that’s how he’s looking at it.”
Bessent will be hoping to iron out the details of this arrangement while in Kyiv this week — and Trump has indicated that he’s willing to play hardball on getting it signed promptly.
“[Ukraine] may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday,” Trump warned Fox News on Monday.
Zelensky doesn’t seem to need much convincing to close his own deal now that Trump has bitten the hook.
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He further sweetened the pot by promising to offer joint Ukrainian-American reconstruction deals.
The last remaining question is whether the Ukrainian president will stand by an ultimatum he’s held during each round of negotiations — securing his country NATO membership or clearance to pursue nuclear weapons technology.
