As Trump Demands U.S. Get $500 Billion In Rare Earth Minerals From Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Heads To Kyiv

President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday morning and said that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will travel to Ukraine this week to secure natural resources for the U.S. military amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

China, the U.S.’s chief global rival, is the world’s largest producer of rare Earth minerals. The U.S. and Europe have been seeking to reduce their dependence on Beijing.

Last fall, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a deal to Trump for continued U.S. military aid in exchange for access to Ukraine’s mineral industry as a part of his “victory plan” to strengthen negotiations with Moscow and end the war. Trump said that he was interested in the deal in early February.

Since February 2022, the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. State Department reported that the U.S. has provided $65.9 billion in military assistance to Ukraine in addition to $69.2 billion following Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

Referencing negotiations over continued U.S. support for Kyiv in its defense against Russian invaders, Trump suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian someday,” in an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier released on Monday.

“I want to have our money secured because we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump told Baier. “They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday.”

“We are going to have all this money in there, and I say: ‘I want it back.’ And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth,” Trump said. “And they have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don’t feel stupid.”

Zelensky called for “real peace and effective security guarantees” for Ukraine in an address on Monday ahead of his meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Friday at the Munich Security Conference. In any agreement between Washington and Moscow, Zelensky wants strong security guarantees “not only for Ukraine but for the entire free world.”

“There are voices which say that Europe could offer security guarantees without the Americans, and I always say no,” said Zelensky during a with The Guardian. “Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees,” he added.

Trump also plans to soon send his Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg to Kyiv to begin peace negotiations.

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Article by Angie Schlager