UKRAINE OFFICIAL SAYS MINERALS DEAL AGREED WITH US

Ukraine has agreed the terms of a major minerals deal with the US, a senior official in Kyiv has told the BBC.

“We have indeed agreed it with a number of good amendments and see it as a positive outcome,” the official said, without providing any further details.

Media reports say Washington has dropped initial demands for a right to $500bn (£395bn) in potential revenue from utilising the natural resources but has not given firm security guarantees to war-torn Ukraine – a key Ukrainian demand.

US President Donald Trump said he was expecting his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington to sign the deal this week, after the two leaders exchanged strong words about each other.

Without confirming that an agreement had been reached, Trump said on Tuesday that in return for the deal Ukraine would get “the right to fight on”.

“They’re very brave,” he told reporters, but “without the United States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time”.

Asked whether supplies of US equipment and ammunition to Ukraine would continue, he said: “Maybe until we have a deal with Russia… We need to have a deal, otherwise it’s going to continue.”

There would be a need for “some form of peacekeeping” in Ukraine following any peace deal, Trump added, but that would need to be “acceptable to everyone”.

Just last week, Trump described Zelensky as a “dictator”, and appeared to blame Ukraine – not Russia – for starting the war, after the Ukrainian leader rejected US demands for $500bn in mineral wealth and suggested that the American president was living in a “disinformation space” created by Russia.

Trump has been pushing for access to Ukraine’s minerals in return for previous military and other aid to the country since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion three years ago.

Zelensky argued nowhere near that much American aid had been provided, adding: “I can’t sell our state.”

On Tuesday, Trump said the US had given Ukraine between $300bn and $350bn.

“We want to get that money back,” he said. “We’re helping the country through a very very big problem… but the American taxpayer now is going to get their money back plus.”

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna told the Financial Times – which first reported the minerals deal on Tuesday – that the deal was “only part of the picture”.

“We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” said Stefanishyna, who has led the negotiations.

According to Ukrainian sources, the US has had to back away from some of its more onerous demands from the war-torn nation and many of the details of this agreement will require further negotiation.

The precedent, however, is set. US aid in the Trump era comes with strings attached. Aid for aid’s sake – whether given for humanitarian or strategic reasons – is a thing of the past.

That represents a fundamental reordering of American foreign policy for more than 75 years, from the days of the Marshall Plan to post-Cold War idealism and George W Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” push to promote global democracy.

Ukraine is just the start. Expect Trump and his foreign policy team to apply their “America First” principles around the world over the course of the next four years. [BBC News]