What does the US-Ukraine natural resources deal mean for the war?

After months of tense negotiations, including an explosive exchange between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump and JD Vance at the White House, the US and Ukraine finally reached a deal to share the latter’s mineral wealth.

The deal, long coveted by Trump, provides Washington with a share in future revenue from Ukraine’s natural resources in exchange for the formation of an investment fund to spur Ukraine’s economic recovery from the war. It is an agreement meant to incentivise the US’ continued investment in Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction, and address Trump’s fears of being ‘ripped off’ to defend another country’s borders. “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.”

The deal was initially meant to be signed when Zelensky visited Washington in February, but it was abruptly cancelled after that stormy exchange between the leaders. The two countries’ negotiators had been trying to smoothen relations since, and evidence of that progress was evident when Trump and Zelensky met on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral last week.

There were however some sticking points. One of them was Ukraine’s insistence that the deal also include postwar security guarantees, something Trump has on record been loath to endorse. Without such guarantees, Kyiv argued, there would be nothing to hold back Russia from restarting the war. The other, which the US wanted, was for all the assistance it had provided since the Russian invasion began in 2022 to be treated as debt that needed to paid back, something that Kyiv had rejected, saying such terms would hurt the country for generations.

The deal that has been reached seems to omit both. The agreement, according to reports, does not include any American security guarantees, and it does not mention that US assistance will have to be treated as debt either. It also appears to specifically keep the door open for Ukraine to eventually join the European Union. The language used when making the announcement, experts pointed out, also shows much more solidarity with Ukraine than is usual for the Trump administration. It refers to ‘Russia’s full scale invasion’ and adds that ‘no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine’.

To Ukraine, the deal is a means to much more. It wants the US to keep supporting it in its defence, and it wants to be on that negotiation table when a ceasefire is eventually thrashed out. Whether or not this deal is the first step in getting there, only time will tell.

Donald Trumpgeopoliticsnatural resourcesNews BriefUS-UkraineVolodymyr ZelenskyWeb Exclusive