Zelensky Will Visit White House to Sign Critical Minerals Deal: Trump

President Donald Trump has said that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky will visit the White House on Friday to sign a critical minerals deal.

- Agencies

[e-mail] WASHINGTON/KYIV: President Donald Trump has said that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky will visit the White House on Friday to sign a critical minerals deal.

Trump made the announcement on Wednesday at the start of his first cabinet meeting.

Trump has framed the emerging deal that would give the US access to Ukraine's deposits of so-called rare earth minerals—used in the aerospace, defense, and nuclear industries—as a chance for Kyiv to pay back the US for aid already sent for the war effort under Democratic President Joe Biden. "The previous administration put us in a very bad position, but we've been able to make a deal where we're going to get the money back and a lot of money in the future," Trump said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukraine said that it had reached a "preliminary" deal to hand revenue from some of its mineral resources to the United States.

The deal is central to Ukrainian attempts to ensure strong support from Trump as he seeks a quick end to Russia's war in Ukraine, with US-Russian talks that have so far excluded Kyiv set to continue on Thursday.

"The main thing for me is we are not debtors. There is no $500 billion debt in the agreement, nor $350, nor $100 billion because that would be unfair," Zelensky told a news briefing of the agreement.