Ukraine-US minerals deal: is Trump turning away from Putin?

Kyiv and Washington have struck a deal that will allow the US to share profits from the mining of Ukraine's mineral reserves, raising hope that Donald Trump will push Russia to make peace.

The White House said the US now has "an economic stake" in securing a "peaceful and sovereign future" for Ukraine but key questions remain unanswered.

Ukraine's supporters hope the agreement will at least lead Trump "to see the country as something more than a money pit and an obstacle to improved relations" with Vladimir Putin, said The New York Times, but it will only kick in after fighting with Russia stops. And there is "no indication" that it gives Ukraine "any explicit American security guarantees against future Russian aggression", said Lisa Haseldine in The Spectator.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What did the commentators say?

For months, Trump has been "bullying" Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, "blaming him for the war", while playing nice with Putin, said Jamie Dettmer at Politico. Then, last week, Trump threatened Russia with more sanctions and posted "Vladimir, STOP!" on Truth Social: was this "rare public rebuke of Putin" a sign of a key "shift" in US thinking?

A "frustrated" White House is becoming increasingly unsure of Putin's "willingness to end the war", said Shelby Magid at the New Atlanticist. And the minerals deal now signals US commitment to a "free, sovereign Ukraine", which completely "undercuts" the Kremlin's aims. Ukraine is now "in its strongest position" with Washington "since Trump took office".

Ukraine's "fragile new confidence" is not centred on the belief that Trump "is about to deliver peace for the ages", said The Economist. "Rather it comes from a shift in mood – a sense that the American president may finally have got Vladimir Putin's number" and might even "have begun to respect his Ukrainian counterpart."

And yet, over the course of "his entire political life, Trump has never truly stood up to" Putin, said Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic. Recently, "perhaps fearing that he's being humiliated", the US president has "started to show glimpses of exasperation". But few White House insiders have any sense of when or if he might take a stand and, even if he does, he's unlikely to truly "excoriate Putin".

What next?

The minerals deal allows Ukraine to retain control over its natural resources, and its share of any profits "will be reinvested in post-war rebuilding", said The New York Times. But Zelenskyy "has made clear that the minerals agreement is not an end in itself". For him, signing the deal helps clear the way "to more consequential talks" on US military support and, ultimately, a ceasefire.

Trump has indicated that he will now give Russia and Ukraine "two weeks or so to come to the negotiating table" to work out a peace deal, said The Spectator's Haseldine.

Ukraine will be pulling out all the stops to show Trump that "when the clock runs out on that fortnight and fighting continues, it is Moscow – not Kyiv – who's to blame".