Trump team sees Ukraine pact as model for future foreign deals
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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant (left) and Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko signing an agreement to establish the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund in Washington on April 30.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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WASHINGTON - The Trump administration sees its resource deal with Ukraine as a model for further international agreements, reflecting the US President’s strategy of using Washington’s foreign policy heft to secure assets and investment returns overseas.
The deal signed on April 30 grants the US privileged access to new projects that develop Ukraine’s natural resources,
A senior Treasury official, who briefed reporters on May 1 on the condition they not be identified, said US officials see the Ukraine deal as a way for the American people to share in the economic growth of regions that the US would typically support through grants or loans.
The official described the deal, which covers resources including oil and gas, graphite and aluminium, as reflecting Mr Trump’s intention to use foreign policy to add assets rather than liabilities to the US balance sheet.
Separately on May 1, Mr Trump’s Africa envoy, Mr Massad Boulos, said the US is pushing for a peace deal between Congo and Rwanda that would also involve separate bilateral minerals pacts with each, Reuters reported.
“This is very much in line with the Trump administration’s approach to diplomacy,” Ms Torrey Taussig, a former Biden administration official who is now director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said of the Ukraine deal. “The Treasury Secretary said economic security is national security, and this definitely aligns with Trump’s proclivity towards deal-making above diplomacy.”
Major questions remain about the prospects for the pact with Ukraine, where many potential resource deposits need further study and investment to become commercially viable, while some are located near or behind the front lines.
Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who travelled to Washington to sign the deal, told reporters during a briefing that the two sides still need to finalise two technical agreements that define how the fund will operate, which she said could take a few months.
More broadly, negotiations are still needed over a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Mr Trump’s envoy, Mr Steve Witkoff, met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week, but has not been able to secure a lasting ceasefire, with Russia continuing air strikes on Ukrainian targets, including cities.
The minerals deal gives the US first claim on profits transferred into a special reconstruction fund to be jointly managed by both nations. Profits will be reinvested in Ukraine for the first 10 years, Kyiv said.
The fund is expected to also reimburse the US for future military assistance to Ukraine, and will be financed by 50 per cent of the revenues from new project licences.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement on April 30 that the Ukraine deal “signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term”.
The agreement does not, however, include security guarantees that Kyiv and its European allies had pursued. It also does not require the repayment of billions of dollars in US aid already delivered since the start of Russia’s invasion, something Mr Trump had initially demanded.
“The agreement has changed significantly during the preparation process,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media on May 1. “It is now truly an equal partnership
