- Zelensky and Trump to sign a US-Ukraine mineral resources agreement, but security guarantees remain uncertain.
- Trump dismisses Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, suggesting American business presence offers “automatic security.”
- European leaders stress the need for their involvement in any peace deal, as initial talks exclude them.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday to formalise an agreement on the exploitation and sharing of Ukraine’s mineral resources, Trump announced.
While Zelensky has described the deal as a preliminary step, he emphasised the need for additional agreements, particularly those involving US security guarantees to deter further Russian aggression. However, Trump downplayed the prospect of extensive American security commitments, stating that the responsibility should largely rest with Europe.
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The US president also appeared to dismiss Ukraine’s long-standing aspiration to join NATO, an ambition Zelensky has repeatedly championed. Speaking during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump argued that the presence of American workers involved in extracting Ukraine’s rare earth metals would provide the country with “automatic security,” implying that direct military assurances were unnecessary. He urged Kyiv to “forget about” NATO membership and echoed Moscow’s claim that Ukraine’s NATO ambitions were one of the factors that led to the war.
Trump further suggested that a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia was within reach, telling reporters, “We’re going to make a deal with Russia and Ukraine to stop killing people.” However, Zelensky pushed back, insisting that without concrete security guarantees, any ceasefire would be ineffective. “Without security guarantees, we won’t have a ceasefire—nothing will work, nothing,” he stated. “I want to find a NATO path or something similar.”
Russia has long opposed Ukraine’s NATO membership, arguing that it would place alliance forces too close to its borders. While NATO had previously declared in 2008 that Ukraine could eventually join, Trump floated the idea of European peacekeeping troops being deployed to Ukraine as part of a ceasefire arrangement. Moscow, however, has rejected this proposal outright.
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Despite Trump’s assertions, European representatives were not included in Washington’s initial discussions with Russia. On Wednesday, Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, underscored the importance of European involvement in any peace negotiations. “For any kind of deal to work on European soil, you need the Europeans to also agree to it,” she said. While she acknowledged that the mineral resources agreement was a matter for Ukraine to decide, she stressed that any peace deal “would need the Europeans on board.”
Meanwhile, a scheduled meeting between Kallas and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which was set to take place on Wednesday, was abruptly cancelled, with both sides citing scheduling conflicts.
