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The US Treasury Secretary has defended Donald Trump’s impetus for an agreement with Ukraine to develop its natural resources and critical minerals, saying the plan would promote post -war growth in the country and will not include any tight economic pressure.
Scott Bessent’s comments in an optimal for Financial Times come while Trump administration officials are trying to link what they claim to be an economic partnership with KYIV as part of their broader diplomatic impetus to mediate a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have so far rejected the US demands for such an agreement, but US officials are putting strong pressure on their push for an agreement.
Officials in Kyiv believe that Trump’s attack against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week, describing it as a dictator and suggesting Ukraine, not Russia, had begun the war, are ways of strong armed in a mineral agreement.
At OP-ED, Bessent put forward some of the details of the US proposal. He said that Ukrainian income from “natural resources, infrastructure and other” will “will be divided into a fund focused on the long -term reconstruction and development of Ukraine, where the United States will have economic rights and governance in those investments future. ”
However, Bessent did not say how many of the mineral extraction income would be allocated to the fund or how much the US TRUMP would have submitted the mineral agreement as a way to ensure that Ukraine pays previous military aid American.
A previous draft of the agreement reported by Ukrainian media, which Ukrainian officials said it was correct, stated that the fund would be created “with the blocking (legal claim) of such income in favor of the United States”.
He also said that the US would decide how much the fund would be paid for reconstruction projects.
In his action, Bessent said the agreement will include “high standards of transparency, accountability, corporate governance and legal frameworks needed to attract strong private investment for post -war growth in Ukraine” and America’s involvement “will not to leave room for corruption and internal agreements. ”
The US Treasury Secretary traveled to Ukraine earlier this month on his first international trip to set up the agreement in Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president.
While US officials, including Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, have said they believe a deal is near, Ukraine officials are more preserved.
“The draft on the table now needs more work,” said one person involved in negotiations. “We see many obligations of Ukraine and very poor (offered) things from the American side, so the draft, as it is today, is not ready to be accepted at the level of the president.”
The talks went early in the morning for the third day and will continue on Saturday and maybe on Sunday.
Zelenskyy said that Bessent’s original proposal was not in the interest of Ukraine, as he demanded 50 percent of the rights for the country’s rare land and critical minerals in exchange for military aid, and did not contain any future assistance offers.
High Ukrainians officials said they had spent last week designing a counterproposal, which they discussed with the US Special Prophet Keith Kellogg, Kyiv on Thursday and Friday.
Zelenskyy wants the Trump administration to provide security guarantees in a new proposal before they agree to register.
At OP-ED, Bessent said the terms of the agreement will “ensure that countries that do not contribute to the protection of Ukraine’s sovereignty will not be able to benefit from its reconstruction or these investments.”
Bessent also suggested that SH.BA was not trying to capture the control of Ukrainian natural resources tight. “Let us also be clear what this is not. The United States would not assume ownership of physical assets in Ukraine. Nor would it be extinguishing Ukraine with more debt. This type of economic pressure, while being determined by other global actors, would not advance American interests and ascrain, ”he wrote.
