Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is \”not ready\” to sign a deal that would give the United States preferential access to his country’s rare earth minerals. US President Donald Trump wants Ukraine to give US companies access as compensation for the tens of billions of dollars of aid delivered under his predecessor Joe Biden. Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser on Friday predicted that Zelenski would sign the deal soon, but the contours of the proposed agreement have not been made public. Ukraine is seeking security guarantees from the U.S. as part of any deal signing away its natural resources and critical minerals. The disagreement over the deal comes amid a war-of-words between Zelenssky and Trump, who branded his Ukrainian counterpart a \”dictator\” in a social media post earlier this week. \”What kind of partnership is this? … And why do we have to give $500 billion, there is no answer,\” a Ukrainian source told AFP. \”There are no American obligations in the agreement regarding guarantees or investments, everything about them is very vague, and they want to extract $500billion from us,\” the source added.
