Trump seeks new minerals deal, seeks control of Ukraine's all natural & energy resources: Report

US President Donald Trump wants a new minerals deal with Ukraine.

This time, just like the first time when Ukraine rejected the initial offer, Trump is seeking near-total control of Ukraine’s natural resources with no security guarantees in return, according to Financial Times.

However, Trump is now not just seeking the near-total control of Ukraine’s critical minerals but also its energy resources, including oil and gas, as per FT.

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged that the Trump administration has submitted a new proposal for the minerals deal, he has not commented on the specifics. Instead, he has simply indicated that Trump wants the deal to be signed with haste.

“Previously, we had a framework agreement, followed by the development of a full agreement. Now, the American side has proposed a grand agreement right away,” said Zelenskyy earlier this week.

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Trump has pitched a minerals deal with Ukraine as a way to recover money that it has spent in the war so far — even as he has so far claimed vastly bloated figures for the aid that the United States has provided Ukraine. He has also pitched the deal as a de facto security guarantee for the country. While Zelenskyy has said that the country’s nuclear power plants are off the table in any deal, Trump has expressed a desire to control those plants as well.

Trump and Zelenskyy were supposed to sign the deal on February 28 at the White House, but that could not happen as Trump kicked Zelenskyy out after a spat involving him, Zelenskyy, and US Vice President JD Vance. When Zelenskyy was explaining in front of the press that why security guarantees are important and how Russia has violated previous agreements, Vance pounced on him and then, for several minutes, he and Trump took turns to berate Zelenskyy and Ukraine publicly.

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Trump has vastly expanded demands in new offer

Unlike the minerals deal that was previously reached between the two countries, Trump now wants profits from all of Ukraine’s natural resources, including critical and rare earth minerals, oil, and gas, according to FT.

In the deal previously agreed upon, only profits from future projects were included, but Trump now wants profits from all projects public or private.

Trump has now demanded that the United States wold appoint three of the five members to the supervisory board to oversee a joint investment fund to split the income from such projects. That would essentially give the United States control of the workings of the fund and a veto as well.

In addition to minerals, oil, and gas, the deal would also cover infrastructure for their extraction, such as roads, railways, pipelines, ports, and refineries.

The United States would receive royalties from the fund at a 4 per cent premium and would retain priority rights on infrastructure projects.

Trump’s offers to Ukraine have previously been dubbed as economic colonisation of the country. While Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has now essentially turned into an ally, is capturing Ukrainian territory and hammering at its territorial sovereignty, Trump with such proposals is seen to be compromising the nation’s economic sovereignty. The offers are also seen as a way to extract maximalist concessions from Ukraine to force it to accept Putin’s terms to end the war.