Trump Says He Wants To Make A Deal With Russia On Rare Earth Metals
- 26.02.2025, 12:34
US officials have confirmed the deal is possible.
The US is open to making a deal with Russia on rare earth metals, US President Donald Trump has said, The Telegraph reports.
“I would like to buy minerals on Russian soil as well... They have very good rare earth metals. They have very valuable land that is not being used, so something like that could happen,” he said.
At the same time, Trump stressed that he had not spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin about access to minerals in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
US officials have confirmed to NBC that the US is open to a mineral deal with Russia.
“Trump is a transactional player, and Putin, understanding this, came up with this counter-move,” said a former US diplomat with experience in the region, adding that the Russians clearly see both Trump's interest in Ukraine's natural resources and the indecisiveness of its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
On February 24, Putin unexpectedly convened a meeting dedicated to rare earth metals. At it, he stated that Russia was ready to offer cooperation to the United States, including in the occupied territories of Ukraine (the Donbas), and also confirmed the possibility of launching a joint project with American companies to mine aluminum in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
“We certainly have an order of magnitude — I want to emphasize this — an order of magnitude more resources of this kind than Ukraine does. Russia is one of the undisputed leaders in reserves of these rare and rare earth metals... These are quite capital-intensive investments,” Putin said.
Before that, Trump said that the United States was interested in Russia’s “huge reserves” of rare earth metals and other “very valuable resources,” and Washington “has something that could be useful” to Moscow. Talk about this began against the backdrop of problems with signing an agreement on mineral resources between the United States and Ukraine. The contradictions arose due to Zelensky’s reluctance to approve the document without security guarantees from the United States. However, the day before, Trump said that he expected the Ukrainian president to visit Washington “this week or next” to sign an updated version of the agreement. In turn, Ukrainian officials told the Financial Times that the deal had been agreed upon. In particular, the parties agreed to create a special fund. Ukraine will direct 50% of future revenues from the extraction of minerals, oil and gas to it. The fund's resources will be invested in projects within the country, but its activities will not extend to existing state resources. Thus, it will not affect the work of Ukraine's largest oil and gas producers — Naftogaz and Ukrnafta. At the same time, the agreement did not include provisions on security guarantees from the United States.