The U.S. officially entered into an agreement Wednesday to revitalize war-torn Ukraine amid a three-year war with Russia that goes far beyond rare earths and mining to include oil, gas and energy-related infrastructure — a likely nod to the difficult reality of tapping into the country’s minerals.
Top Trump officials signed a trio of documents to create a “reconstruction investment fund” that gives the U.S. a share of future revenues from Ukraine’s natural resources, senior Treasury Department officials told reporters on a call.
Under the agreement, the fund will receive 50 percent of the royalty license fees and other payments tied to new projects in Ukraine. That money will then be used to invest in mining, oil and gas projects, as well as infrastructure and processing, which the U.S. and Ukraine will jointly select, they said.
A final deal emerged after months of fraught negotiations and an explosive White House meeting between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that left an earlier version of the agreement in shambles.
