Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday to sign an agreement on sharing his country’s mineral resources, Trump has said.
Zelensky has described the bilateral deal as preliminary, and said he wants further agreements which include US security guarantees to deter renewed Russian aggression.
But Trump said the US would not provide guarantees “beyond… very much”, saying the responsibility should instead fall to Europe.
Trump also seemingly ruled out the prospect of Ukraine becoming a Nato member – one of Zelensky’s long-held ambitions.
Speaking at a meeting of his cabinet on Wednesday, Trump said the presence of American workers extracting rare earth metals on Ukrainian soil would provide “automatic security” for Ukraine.
He said Kyiv should “forget about” joining Nato and repeated Russia’s claims that the issue was one of the driving factors behind the war.