Donald Trump will receive Volodimir Zelensky in the White House to close an economic agreement in exchange for security guarantees

“Zelenski will arrive on Friday, he is confirmed,” Trump said Wednesday when inaugurating the first meeting of his federal cabinet of his new government. “We will reach an agreement with Russia and Ukraine to end the deaths of young soldiers.”

Trump has spent the last week denigrating Zelenski as a “dictator” and blaming Ukraine for the war that Russia began. It was clearly part of a public pressure campaign Against a leader who was an ally of the Government of Joe Biden, aimed at getting a proposal that would give the United States a great participation in his economy of “critical minerals” in Ukraine.

While the situation is very fluid and the visit could be canceled, the United States government is optimistic because an agreement has been reached in principle on the valuable minerals that Ukraine possesses, something very precious by the White House.

Zelenski, however, said that the commitment to mining resources is rather a “-marco agreement”, which could evolve depending on how conversations with the American president are going. “It can become a great success, or simply disappear,” Zelenski warned.

Trump says he wants to “recover money” of the help agreed to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion and the negotiations by the agreement has had several swings.

Ukrainian sources said that Washington’s initial proposal was equivalent to “getting us 500,000 million” of dollars, the quadruple of the assistance mobilized so far by Washington, that is, about 120,000 million dollars, according to data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Ifw Kiel). Then the Ukrainian President rejected the agreement, refusing to sign a document that would weigh on “Ten generations of Ukrainians.”

This financial claim from the United States would no longer appear in the document. The document provides that North Americans and Ukrainians jointly exploit the mining resources of Ukraine, and that the revenues derived feed a fund belonging to the two countries.

According to a Ukrainian leadership to the AFP agency, Americans agreed to get “All clauses that did not suit us, particularly the one relating to the 500,000 million dollars.”

As a condition, kyiv asks his allies to obtain security guarantees, that is, a political-military mechanism that dissupped Russia to launch a new attack later. Ukraine estimates that the best guarantee would be access to NATO, a scenario rejected by Washington and considered a red line by the Kremlin.

Another Ukrainian demand is the deployment of peace maintenance soldiers, Once a fire has been agreed with Russia.

The United States has said that it will not send troops, although it sees with good eyes that it is deployed to soldiers from European countries. This Wednesday Trump said that Europe and not the United States should be “mostly responsible” to support Ukrainian military forces and stop future Russian attacks if the current war ends.

The text of the mineral agreement would include a general reference to the security of Ukraine, but not concrete guarantees. The question is being negotiated.

The issue of “critical minerals” that Ukraine possesses is a key factor in the treatment. That country concentrates about 5% of world mining resources. Those who interest Trump in particular are not being exploited, or are difficult to access, or are in Russian territory.

Ukraine produces three critical minerals: manganese (is the eighth world producer according to World Mining Data), Titanium (11th World Producer) and Graphite (14th Producer), indispensable for electrical batteries. In addition, it is also one of the main countries in Europe in terms of lithium -exploitation potential, indispensable in the manufacture of electric car batteries.

Exploiting these deposits would imply millionaire investments. For example, the Ukrainian government points out that the exploitation of the Novopoltavske site, in the Zaporiyia region, would need for itself about 300 million dollars of investment. There it is estimated that there is apatite, tantalus, niobio, strontium, rare earth and even uranium. But all this is in occupied territory For the Russian army, and Kremlin has ruled out yielding areas under its control.

Rare metals are important for many types of technology and electronics, including medical, military, aerospace care, as well as clean energy uses.

“We want to recover the money”Trump said, who again exaggerated the total amount of American help sent to Ukraine since the war began. The United States has sent almost 120,000 million dollars to help Ukraine since the war began, but Trump falsely claimed again that the United States had sent 350,000 million dollars.

The negotiations occur in the middle of Trump’s approach to Russia, which has also been willing to negotiate its own rare earths.

Last week, officials from the United States and Russia met at Riyadh to decide how to advance in the conflict with Ukraine, without the presence of the kyiv government. Quickly Zelenski ruled out any decision they made and said that without the presence of Ukraine there will be no agreement.