Trump: US will sign rare earth deal with Ukraine 'very soon

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will soon sign a natural resources deal with Ukraine that will give it a share of future revenues from extraction.

Speaking at an education event at the White House on Thursday, Trump said: "We're working very well with Ukraine and Russia. One of the things we are doing is signing a rare earth agreement with Ukraine very soon."

Earlier in the day, Trump said the United States was making deals around the world to acquire rare earth and other mineral resources, "particularly in Ukraine."

Just a day earlier, however, Trump's spokesman said the United States was moving away from the minerals deal it had negotiated with Kiev and shifting its focus to a broader Ukraine-Russia peace treaty.

"We are now focused on a long-term peace agreement," White House press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Wednesday, quoted by Bloomberg. "We have moved beyond a purely economic framework for mineral deals."

On February 28, Zelensky, who was visiting the United States, met with Trump at the White House, where the two sides quarreled fiercely and did not sign the US-Ukraine mineral agreement. Xinhua quoted media reports as saying that under the deal, the United States and Ukraine would jointly set up a fund in which Ukraine would pay 50 percent of future revenues from its oil, gas, mineral and other resources. The United States will enjoy the maximum economic benefits generated by the Fund and reinvest a portion of the proceeds in Ukraine.