US wants to control all minerals in Ukraine and major infrastructure investments – Bloomberg
In the new version of the rare earths agreement, the US is seeking to control all major future infrastructure and mining investments in Ukraine, potentially gaining a veto over any role for Kyiv’s other allies and undermining its bid for European Union membership.
This was reported by Bloomberg, which received a draft of the document, Censor.NET reports.
Thus, as part of the agreement, President Donald Trump’s administration is demanding the "right of first offer" on investments in all infrastructure and natural resources projects under a revised partnership deal with Ukraine.
What are the demands of the Trump administration?
"If accepted, the partnership agreement would bestow enormous power on the US to control investments into Ukraine in projects including roads and railways, ports, mines, oil and gas and extraction of critical minerals. It would represent an unprecedented expansion of US economic influence in Europe’s largest country by area just at the time when it’s attempting to align with the EU," the article says.
In addition, the agency writes, the agreement would grant the US first claim on profits transferred into a special reconstruction investment fund that would be controlled by Washington.
"Retribution" for the assistance provided
Crucially, the document states that the US regards the "material and financial benefits" provided to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 as its contribution to that fund.
In effect, this would mean the Trump administration would compel Ukraine to pay for all of the US military and economic support provided since the start of the war before Kyiv received any income from the partnership fund.
The journalists add that the details of the agreement are currently being discussed, and the final version of the draft may differ significantly from the current one.
Ukraine is likely to respond to the US document with its own amendments this week, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The US veto over Ukraine's mineral resources
According to the draft document, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) would control the investment fund by nominating three of five board members and holding a "golden share" that gave it special voting rights to block certain decisions. Ukraine would name the other two and be prevented from intervening in the fund’s day-to-day management.
The government in Kyiv would be required to put 50% of its earnings from all the new natural resources and infrastructure projects into the fund. The document states that the United States will be entitled to all profits plus 4% annual return until it has repaid all aid costs to Ukraine from 2022.
Ukraine will also be required to submit all investment projects to the fund for review. Kyiv would be barred from offering rejected projects to other parties with "materially better" terms for at least one year.
In addition, according to the draft, the US government would have the right to purchase Ukraine’s metals, minerals and oil and gas ahead of other parties on commercial terms, regardless of whether the fund was financing the project.
The deal, which has no time limit, also forbids Kyiv from selling critical minerals to countries that are "strategic competitors" of the US., Bloomberg adds.
Earlier, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a member of the Voice party and deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's Tax Committee, said that the United States had handed over a new draft agreement on minerals to Ukraine, which must be ratified by the Verkhovna Rada.
In his opinion, this option is disadvantageous for Ukraine.
