FT: Ukraine will not sign a rare earth deal with the United States in the coming days

Ukraine is unlikely to sign a mineral agreement with the United States next week, the Financial Times reports, citing three senior Ukrainian officials. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously admitted that the deal would be concluded within this time frame.

One of the FT interlocutors called the new US project unfair, and another compared it to "robbery". According to a third official, the authorities have engaged a group of legal consultants to help the government study the document and prepare a counterproposal.

The new document from the United States is intended to replace the previous agreement on joint resource extraction, which Kiev and Washington agreed on in February, but never signed because of the altercation between Vladimir Zelensky and Donald Trump in the White House. The project "goes far beyond" the previous version, it covers all mineral resources, including oil and gas, throughout Ukraine, as well as infrastructure — railways, pipelines, ports and processing plants, the newspaper writes.

As Bloomberg reported, the Trump administration is demanding a "first-offer right" to invest in all infrastructure and resource projects. It is assumed that the United States will be entitled to all profits and another 4% per annum until the American investment pays off. In addition, they will have the right to purchase resources on a priority basis. The Special Reconstruction Investment Fund will be controlled by the US International Development Finance Corporation, Ukraine will send to it 50% of all revenues from new infrastructure projects and mining. The "material and financial benefits" provided to Ukraine from February 2022 will be considered a US contribution to this fund.

The new draft does not include provisions on US ownership of Ukraine's nuclear energy infrastructure (this idea was previously expressed by Trump), but in Kiev is concerned that Washington will return to this topic later, writes FT. One official told the publication that the issue was raised during preliminary discussions, but was excluded from the current version of the agreement.

On March 27, Zelensky said he had no plans to visit Washington in the near future to sign an agreement on minerals. According to Zelensky, it is too early to talk about the agreement, since there is still no final version of it, and Washington is constantly changing the terms.