US wants revised terms on Ukraine minerals deal, FT reports

The Trump administration is looking to renegotiate its proposed minerals deal with Ukraine which, if agreed on, would grant the US expanded access to the Eastern European resources, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

The FT has learned, citing Ukrainian officials, that Washington wants to broaden the terms of the deal to include other assets, most notably a nuclear power plant that is currently under Russian control. It is also looking to add more specific provisions on American ownership of a joint investment fund.

These changes would, the sources said, essentially require a renegotiation of the unsigned minerals that fell apart last month.

The FT report comes a day after US President Donald Trump said that a minerals deal will be signed “shortly” following his talks this week with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders. The pledge was made following his signing of an executive order to increase US production of critical minerals. In addition to Ukraine, Trump said that his government is also looking at rare earths and minerals in other countries.

With the potential revision of terms, Ukrainian officials told FT they are concerned about Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government “being pressured into unfavourable terms”, especially after Washington paused arms deliveries and intelligence sharing with Kyiv earlier this month.

During a phone call this week, Trump and Zelenskyy reportedly discussed Ukraine’s energy supply and nuclear plants, the FT said, citing both the secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.

Zelenskyy told reporters during an online briefing on Wednesday that they discussed just one nuclear facility: the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.

Located 650 km southeast of Kyiv on the Dnipro River, the facility has been under Russian military control since March 2022.