What is the minerals deal between the USA and Ukraine? The US leader has sought an agreement from Ukraine for access to the country's natural resources in exchange for weapons. According to the US president, Donald Trump, these underground reserves (like Lithium ore) should now belong to America. The new US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, recently visited Kyiv. He presented Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with a surprising claim to half of Ukraine’s minerals wealth, as well as to its oil, gas, and infrastructure such as ports. In Kyiv on February 12, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent presented President Zelensky with the first draft of a minerals cooperation agreement. The deal called for 50 percent of Ukraine’s resulting minerals and natural resources revenues to go to the United States as payment for previous military support for the war against Russia. This would include not only revenues from rare earth mining but the “entire economic value associated ...