President Trump has just struck one big, beautiful deal with Ukraine — and its impact could reach far beyond rare earth minerals.
Unveiled yesterday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the agreement does more than open Ukraine’s vast mineral reserves to US investment.
It closes a lingering rift between President Trump and President Zelensky over American support for Kyiv, while catapulting US firms to the forefront of Ukraine’s postwar mining and reconstruction boom.
“Our money is secure and we can start digging,” Trump said at yesterday’s cabinet meeting. “The American presence will keep a lot of bad actors out.”
Trump was not just warning off the likes of Russia but positioning the United States as a major player in Ukraine’s economy.
Both Bessent and Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko were all smiles at yesterday’s signing ceremony. Bessent called it a “great deal” for Washington and Kyiv. “It’s win-win,” he said.
Under the arrangement, both sides will form a Joint Reconstruction Investment Fund — co-managed on a 50/50 basis.
Kyiv retains full sovereignty over its natural resources. According to Ukrainian parliamentarians who must approve the deal, Washington can count its future military assistance as a financial contribution to the fund.
Bessent’s negotiating genius was to expand the agreement beyond mining.
Ukraine famously holds roughly 5% of the world’s critical materials, including titanium, lithium and rare earths that are needed to manufacture everything from electronics to precision weapons. But Ukraine is also on the cusp of a massive reconstruction boom.
According to a World Bank estimate, rebuilding the country after Russia’s invasion could cost $524 billion over the next decade. The deal potentially puts American firms at the front of the line for reconstruction contracts.
“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,” Bessent said.
It also sends a powerful signal to Beijing.
China has long eyed a role in Ukraine’s postwar rebuilding boom. Bessent’s deal throws cold water on that ambition.
“No state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine,” Bessent emphasized.
That’s bad news for Beijing. China has supplied critical components to Russia’s defense sector, including electronics used in tanks, missiles, and drones.
Last month, President Zelensky accused Beijing of helping Russia manufacture drones for use on the battlefield. Kyiv also claims more than 150 Chinese nationals are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.
Underscoring the message to Beijing, Bessent tapped the US Development Finance Corporation — an agency created by Trump in his first term to counter China’s infrastructure diplomacy — to manage the American side of the agreement.
The deal doesn’t just establish a long-term commercial partnership with Kyiv and freeze out China. Importantly, it also makes it harder for Washington to break with Ukraine without unraveling its strategic investments in the country.
In recent weeks, both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio hinted that the US might walk away from the peace process.
Bessent’s move changes the equation.
By binding the US and Ukraine in a joint venture, the deal becomes one of the most consequential achievements of Trump’s first 100 days.
In Moscow, officials sneered at the breakthrough. Russia’s war aim seeks the destruction of Ukraine, not the deepening of that country’s business ties with the United States.
“Trump has broken the Kyiv regime into paying for American aid with minerals,” said former Russian President and Deputy Head of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev in an online post. “Now they will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country.”
But unfortunately for Russia, Trump’s deal downgrades the likelihood of Ukraine disappearing anytime soon.
Trump sees business ties as more binding than traditional security guarantees.
For him, deals like this one are more credible — and durable — than the unenforceable promises that presidents like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton offered to Ukraine in the past.
Instead of issuing blank checks or vague promises, Trump is showing that he is bullish on Ukraine’s post-war future.
If the United States is going to recoup its investments, Ukraine will need to be safe from future attack.
That’s a fact Moscow will not be able to ignore at the negotiating table.
Peter Doran is an adjunct senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
