Reuters reported that on April 17, Ukrainian officials said that the memorandum of understanding signed between Kiev and Washington is considered the first step towards an agreement to develop mineral resources in Ukraine, which was pushed by US President Donald Trump.
We are pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with US partners, paving the way for the Economic Partnership Agreement and the establishment of the Ukrainian Rehabilitation Investment Fund, said Yulia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economics of Ukraine.
Also on April 17, speaking to reporters at the White House, President Trump revealed that the deal could be signed as early as next week, expected on April 24.
Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the details of the deal are still being finalized and the signing will take place before April 25.
According to Mr. Bessent, the agreement is about 80 pages long and is built on the contents that the two sides have agreed upon in advance. He affirmed that this time he would "go straight to a big deal".
In a recent statement, President Volodymyr Zelensky also mentioned some similar contents of the deal.
According to Reuters, last weekend, a Ukrainian delegation went to Washington for negotiations after the Trump administration proposed a new, larger-scale deal.
This is seen as an attempt to repeat the previous broken process, when the two sides reached a preliminary consensus but could not sign it in the end due to the fierce debate between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on February 28.
The deal, which Trump is pushing to give the US preferential access to natural resources and strategic minerals of Ukraine, is seen by Washington as a form of compensation for military aid provided to Kiev under former President Joe Biden.
Some Bloomberg sources revealed that at the latest round of talks in Washington, the Trump administration significantly reduced the estimated total aid figure, from more than $300 billion to about $100 billion.
Meanwhile, Ukraine assessed the figure as just over $90 billion during the conflict with Russia. However, the US side still sees the resource deal as an opportunity to recover costs through profits from the joint investment fund, but has not yet determined the specific scale.
