Trump says U.S. wants Ukraine's rare earth metals in exchange for aid

In exchange for financial and military assistance, the USA expects Ukraine to guarantee supplies of rare-earth metals. This was stated by American President Donald Trump on Monday, February 3.

"We expect to make a deal with them <...> I want to have guarantees on rare earth metals, and they are ready to provide them," Trump said during a meeting with journalists in the Oval Office.

Separately, he emphasized that the U.S. will require the EU to increase funding for Ukraine support to "equalize" them with U.S. investments.

Trump pum-pum-pum: Kiev could lose half of Western military aid

When Ukraine should expect new problems and whether the U.S. is capable of completely withdrawing funding from it

Earlier, on February 1, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, said that he expects the start of negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict with the participation of Moscow, Kiev, Washington and Brussels. According to him, after the conversation with Trump, Kiev should move to some format of conversation with the Russian Federation. As Zelensky noted, at the moment consultations with the administration of the American leader are of a general nature.

On the same day, Reuters reported that the Trump administration has for several days continued to discuss ways to convince Ukraine to hold a presidential election in the country as part of a truce with Russian Federation so that the country's newly elected leader would take on the responsibility of agreeing a long-term deal with Russian Federation

The last round of talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. They lasted about three hours. Later, Kiev officially refused contacts with Moscow. On October 4, 2022, the Ukrainian president put into effect the decision of the country's National Security and Defense Council that it was impossible to hold talks with Vladimir Putin.