What we know about US-Ukraine minerals deal

1 May 2025 Share Save Ian Aikman & João da Silva BBC News Share Save

Reuters Relations between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump appeared to improve during a recent meeting at the Vatican

Washington and Kyiv have signed a long-awaited deal involving Ukraine’s natural resources, after months of contentious negotiations. Details are still emerging about the agreement, but both sides have confirmed that it sets up an investment fund to search for minerals, and set outs how revenues would be split. In a statement, the US said the agreement “signals to Russia” that the Trump administration is “committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous” Ukraine. It comes just over two months after a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Zelensky at the White House turned into a public shouting match sparking fear that the US might withdraw its support for Ukraine.

What we know about the deal

Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko flew to Washington on Wednesday after an apparent breakthrough in negotiations to sign the deal with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. After joining Bessent at a signing ceremony, Svyrydenko listed its provisions on social media. Posting on X, she said the deal establishes a reconstruction investment fund to help attract Western investment in Ukrainian projects in minerals, oil and gas. She says the resources will remain the property of Ukraine, and Kyiv will choose where to do the extracting. The partnership will be equal, on a 50/50 basis, she says, adding that the agreement includes no debt obligation to the US. The US will play a role in helping to attract investment and technology to the projects in Ukraine. As part of the deal, the US will contribute new assistance to Kyiv, which may include, for example, air defence systems. She says the fund’s income and contributions will not be taxed by either country. Svyrydenko says the deal must still be ratified by Ukrainian lawmakers.

The agreement recognises the contributions that Ukraine has made to global security, she writes, thanking everyone who worked on brokering it. It is unclear if the deal includes an explicit security guarantee from the US, something Zelensky has pushed hard for throughout negotiations. A US Treasury Department statement said: “No state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.” Trump, for his part, said the deal represents payback for the money the US has spent on the war so far. “Biden handed them $350bn,” Trump said in a phone call in to a town hall on the NewsNation network. He went on to add: “We made a deal where we get much more in theory than the $350bn.” BBC Verify: How much has the US given to Ukraine? Trump has made the claim that the US has spent around $350 billion (£263 billion) on Ukraine aid on numerous occasions. But a BBC Verify analysis found the actual amount is much lower. Asked if the US’s presence in Ukraine might inhibit Russia’s movement in the region, he said “it could”.

What minerals does Ukraine have?

Kyiv estimates that about 5% of the world’s “critical raw materials” are in Ukraine. This includes some 19 million tonnes of proven reserves of graphite, which the Ukrainian Geological Survey state agency says makes the nation “one of the top five leading countries” for the supply of the mineral. Graphite is used to make batteries for electric vehicles. Ukraine also has significant deposits of titanium and lithium. It says it has substantial amounts of the world’s rare earth metals – a group of 17 elements that are used to produce weapons, wind turbines, electronics and other products vital in the modern world – but these claims are disputed. Also, some of the country’s mineral deposits have been seized by Russia. According to Svyrydenko, resources worth $350bn (£277bn) remain in occupied territories today. There are warnings too that a deal allowing the US access to Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth cannot happen unless the country addresses its problem with unexploded mines. A quarter of Ukraine’s land mass is estimated to be contaminated with landmines, mainly concentrated in the war-torn east of the country. Another issue is it will be some time before anyone sees any material benefits from the deal. “These resources aren’t in a port or warehouse; they must be developed,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former minister and head of Kyiv school of economics, told the BBC. What minerals does Ukraine have?

How has Russia reacted?

Trump appears to set Putin ‘two-week’ deadline on Ukraine

Trump said they would find out in two weeks whether or not Putin was “tapping us along”

Since Sunday, Trump has written multiple posts on social media saying that Putin has gone “absolutely crazy” and is “playing with fire” after Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine.

“I can’t tell you that, but I’ll let you know in about two weeks,” Trump told reporters, the latest amid a string of critical public remarks made by Trump about Putin.

As the Kremlin escalated its attacks on Ukraine, Trump was asked in the Oval Office on Wednesday if he thought Putin wanted to end the war.

US President Donald Trump has appeared to set a two-week deadline for Vladimir Putin, threatening a different response if the Russian counterpart was still stringing him along.

The bombardments by Russia are said to have been some of the largest and deadliest attacks since the start of the war, now in its fourth year.

Russian strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, killed at least 13 people and injured dozens more, including children, over the weekend.

And by Wednesday, the attacks had shown no signs of slowing down.

In Trump’s remarks about the escalation of violence and whether he thinks Putin is serious about ending the war, Trump said: “I’ll let you know in about two weeks.

“Within two weeks. We’re gonna find out whether or not (Putin is) tapping us along or not.

“And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently.”

The comments are a sign of Trump’s growing frustration, as the White House’s repeated efforts to negotiate a deal between Russia and Ukraine appear ever more futile.

This includes a recent two-hour phone call between Trump and Putin, after which the US president said the discussions went “very well”.

Putin walked away from the call saying he was ready to work with Ukraine on a “memorandum on a possible future peace agreement”.

That call was one week before Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles towards Ukraine’s capital, according to Ukraine’s air force.

And a memorandum has yet to be produced by Russia.

So far, Trump’s threats have not appeared to concern Moscow sufficiently for it to accede to his demands. Trump has not delivered on previous such threats.

Since taking office, Trump has only taken action against Ukraine, as Washington sought to steer the countries to Trump’s demand for a truce.

This included an eight-day suspension of US military assistance and intelligence sharing with Kyiv in March.

Meanwhile the US administration has not publicly demanded any significant concessions from Russia.

The White House rejects accusations of appeasing Moscow or failing to enforce its will, pointing out that all the Biden-era sanctions remain in force against Russia.

But so far its mediation approach appears to have made the Kremlin more, not less, empowered.

After the latest attacks, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “something has happened” to Putin, which the Kremlin said were comments made “connected to an emotional overload”.

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine continued in the days afterwards. Trump then escalated his criticism. On Tuesday, he said Putin was “playing with fire” and that “lots of bad things” would have happened to Russia if it were not for Trump’s involvement.

A Kremlin aid responded to the latest Trump Truth Social post by saying: “We have come to the conclusion that Trump is not sufficiently informed about what is really happening.”

Putin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian state TV channel Russia-1 that Trump must be unaware of “the increasingly frequent massive terrorist attacks Ukraine is carrying out against peaceful Russian cities.”

On Wednesday, Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky that Berlin will help Kyiv produce long-range missiles to defend itself from Russian attack.

The Kremlin has warned that any decision to end range restrictions on the missiles that Ukraine can use would be a dangerous change in policy that would harm efforts to reach a political deal.

In the face of Russia’s recalcitrance, Trump has frequently softened his demands, shifting the emphasis from his original call for an immediate 30-day ceasefire, to which only Ukraine agreed, to more recently demanding a summit with Putin to get what he says would be a breakthrough.

Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov have upped their demands from earlier positions since the US restored contacts with the Russians in February.

These have included a demand that Ukraine cede parts of its own country not even occupied by Russia and that the US recognises Crimea as a formal part of Russia.

Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Moscow, calls this a “poison pill” introduced by Russia: Creating conditions Kyiv could never agree to in order to shift blame onto Ukraine in Trump’s eyes.

The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and left much of Ukraine’s east and south in ruins. Moscow controls roughly one-fifth of the country’s territory, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Zelensky has accused Moscow of delaying the peace process and said they were yet to deliver a promised memorandum of peace terms following talks in Istanbul. Peskov insisted the document was in its “final stages.”

32 nations but only one man matters – Nato’s summit is all about Trump

12 hours ago Share Save Jonathan Beale Defence correspondent Share Save

Getty Images Nato’s chief Mark Rutte (left) wants to give Donald Trump what he wants – higher defence spending by America’s allies

Nato summits tend to be “pre-cooked”, not least to present a united front. Secretary General Mark Rutte has already settled on the menu for their meeting at The Hague: one that will avoid a row with Nato’s most powerful member, the US. A commitment to increase defence spending by European allies is the dish that President Donald Trump wants served – and that’s exactly what he’ll be getting. Though there will inevitably be the added ingredients of compromise and fudge. Nor will the summit be able to paper over the cracks between Trump and many of his European allies on trade, Russia and the escalating conflict in the Middle East. The US president, whose mantra is America First, is not a huge fan of multinational organisations. He has been highly critical of Nato too – even questioning its very foundation of collective defence. In Trump’s first term, at his first Nato summit, he berated European allies for not spending enough and owing the US “massive amounts of money”. On that message he has at least been consistent.

Getty Images European countries are upping defence spending – in part because of Trump, in part because of Putin

Mark Rutte, who has a good relationship with the US president, has worked hard to give him a win. The summit takes place at the World Forum in The Hague over two days, on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Now the main discussions will last just three hours and the summit statement is being reduced to five paragraphs, reportedly because of the US president’s demands. Trump is one of 32 leaders from the Western defensive alliance who are coming, along with the heads of more than a dozen partner countries. Dutch police have mounted their biggest ever security operation for the most expensive Nato summit so far, at a cost of €183.4m (£155m; $210m). Some have suggested the brevity of the summit is in part to cater to the US president’s attention span and dislike of long meetings. But a shorter summit with fewer subjects discussed will, more importantly, help hide divisions. Ed Arnold, of the defence think tank Rusi, says Trump likes to be the star of the show and predicts he’ll be able to claim that he’s forced European nations to act. In truth he’s not the first US president to criticise allies’ defence spending. But he’s had more success than most. Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador to Nato, admits that some European governments do not like the way Trump’s gone about it – demanding that allies spend 5% of their GDP on defence.

Getty Images Since his first term in office, Donald Trump has consistently demanded that Nato allies pay more towards their defence

Europe still only accounts for 30% of Nato’s total military spending. Volker says many Europeans now admit they that “we needed to do this, even if it’s unfortunate that it took such a kick in the pants”. Some European nations are already boosting their defence spending to 5% of their GDP. Most are the countries living in close proximity to Russia – such as Poland, Estonia and Lithuania. It’s not just Trump who’s been piling on the pressure. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing a response. But in reality many Nato members will struggle to meet the new target. A few haven’t met the goal of 2%, set more than a decade ago. Rutte’s compromise formula is for allies to increase their core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, with an additional 1.5% towards defence-related expenditure. But the definition of defence-related expenditure appears to be so vague that it might be rendered meaningless. Rutte says it could include the cost of industry of infrastructure – building bridges, roads and railways. Ed Arnold, of Rusi, says it’ll inevitably lead to more “creative accounting”. Even if, as expected, the new spending target is approved, some nations may have little intent of reaching it – by 2032 or 2035. The timescale’s still unclear. Spain’s prime minister has already called it unreasonable and counterproductive. Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t even been able to say when the UK will spend 3% of its GDP of defence. The UK prime minister only said that it was an ambition some time in the next parliament. However, given the UK government’s stated policy of putting Nato at the heart of the UK’s defence policy, Sir Keir will have to back the new plan. The real danger is to interpret the demand for an increase in defence spending as arbitrary, a symbolic gesture – or just bowing to US pressure. It’s also driven by Nato’s own defence plans on how it would respond to an attack by Russia. Rutte himself has said that Russia could attack a Nato country within five years.

Getty Images Russian forces are still driving into Ukraine – and there are fears it could invade other European states

As Trump goes to G7 summit, other world leaders aim to show they’re not intimidated

FILE – A Canada flag, left, and an Alberta flag flap in the breeze with Wedge Mountain in the background at the site of the G7 Leaders meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, June 2, 2025. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP, file)

FILE – A Canada flag, left, and an Alberta flag flap in the breeze with Wedge Mountain in the background at the site of the G7 Leaders meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, June 2, 2025. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP, file)

FILE – A Canada flag, left, and an Alberta flag flap in the breeze with Wedge Mountain in the background at the site of the G7 Leaders meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, June 2, 2025. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP, file)

FILE – A Canada flag, left, and an Alberta flag flap in the breeze with Wedge Mountain in the background at the site of the G7 Leaders meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, June 2, 2025. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP, file)

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) —

President Donald Trump has long bet that he can scare allies into submission — a gamble that is increasingly being tested ahead of the Group of Seven summit beginning Monday in Canada.

He’s threatened stiff tariffs in the belief that other nations would crumple. He’s mused about taking over Canada and Greenland. He’s suggested he will not honor NATO’s obligations to defend partners under attack. And he’s used Oval Office meetings to try to intimidate the leaders of Ukraine and South Africa.

But many world leaders see fewer reasons to be cowed by Trump, even as they recognize the risks if he followed through on his threats. They believe he will ultimately back down — since many of his plans could inflict harm on the U.S. — or that he can simply be charmed and flattered into cooperating.

“Many leaders still seem intimidated by Trump, but increasingly they are catching on to his pattern of bullying,” said Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “In places as diverse as Canada, Iran, China and the EU, we are seeing increasing signs that leaders now recognize that Trump is afraid of anything resembling a fair fight. And so they are increasingly willing to stand up to him.”

In the 22 instances in which Trump has publicly threatened military action since his first term, the U.S. only used force twice, according to a May analysis by Shapiro.

Ahead of the G7 summit, there are already signs of subtle pushback against Trump from fellow leaders in the group. French President Emanuel Macron planned to visit Greenland over the weekend in a show of European solidarity. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said the U.S. is no longer the “predominant” force in the world after Trump’s tariffs created fissures in a decades-long partnership between the U.S. and its northern neighbor.

“We stood shoulder to shoulder with the Americans throughout the Cold War and in the decades that followed, as the United States played a predominant role on the world stage,” Carney said this past week in French. “Today, that predominance is a thing of the past.”

The new prime minister added that with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the U.S. became the global hegemon, a position of authority undermined by Trump’s transactional nature that puts little emphasis on defending democratic values or the rule of law.

“Now the United States is beginning to monetize its hegemony: charging for access to its markets and reducing its relative contributions to our collective security,” Carney said.

Israel’s attack on Iran has added a new wrinkle to the global picture as the summit leaders gather to tackle some of the world’s thorniest problems

A senior Canadian official said it was decided early on that the G7 won’t be issuing a joint communiqué as it has at past summits — an indication of how hard it can be to get Trump on the same page with other world leaders. The White House said individual leader statements will be issued on the issues being discussed.

Speaking last month at a conference in Singapore, Macron called France a “friend and an ally of the United States” but pushed back against Trump’s desire to dominate what other countries do. Macron said efforts to force other nations to choose between the U.S. and China would lead to the breakdown of the global order put in place after World War II.

“We want to cooperate, but we do not want to be instructed on a daily basis what is allowed, what is not allowed, and how our life will change because of the decision of a single person,” Macron said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba pushed back against Trump’s agenda of levying higher tariffs on imported goods, arguing it would hurt economic growth. The Japanese leader specifically called Trump ahead of the summit to confirm their plans to talk on the sidelines, which is a greater focus for Japan than the summit itself.

“I called him as I also wanted to congratulate his birthday, though one day earlier,” Ishiba said.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the summit was an opportunity for Trump to “mend” relationships with other countries so China would be unable to exploit differences among the G7.

She said other foreign leaders are “not intimidated” by Trump’s actions, which could be driving them away from tighter commitments with the U.S.

“The conversations that I’ve had with those leaders suggest that they think that the partnership with the United States has been really important, but they also understand that there are other opportunities,” Shaheen said.

The White House did not respond to emailed questions for this story.

Having originally made his reputation in real estate and hospitality, Trump has taken kindly to certain foreign visitors, such as U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Starmer has sought to keep Trump in line with Europe in supporting Ukraine and NATO instead of brokering any truces that would favor Russia. He has echoed the president’s language about NATO members spending more on defense. But in his Oval Office visit, Starmer also pleased Trump by delivering an invite for a state visit from King Charles III.

The German government said it, too, wanted to send a public signal of unity, saying that while Trump’s recent meeting with Merz at the White House went harmoniously, the next test is how the relationship plays out in a team setting.

There will also be other world leaders outside of the G7 nations attending the summit in mountainous Kananaskis, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump dressed down in the Oval Office.

Italy’s Meloni has positioned herself as a “bridge” between the Trump administration and the rest of Europe. But Italy’s strong support of Ukraine and Trump’s threatened tariffs on European goods have put Meloni, the only European leader to attend Trump’s inauguration, in a difficult position.

Mark Sobel, U.S. chair of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, an independent think tank, said Trump’s “trade policies, backing for right wing European movements, seeming preference for dealing with authoritarians and many of his other actions are alienating our G7 allies,” even if the U.S. president is correct that Europe needs to do more on defense.

But even as other G7 leaders defuse any public disputes with Trump, the U.S. president’s vision for the world remains largely incompatible with they want.

“In short, behind the curtains, and notwithstanding whatever theater, the Kananaskis summit will highlight a more fragmented G7 and an adrift global economy,” Sobel said.

___

AP reporters Rob Gillies in Toronto, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Jill Lawless in London, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

Trump wants to end birthright citizenship. Where do other countries stand?

13 May 2025 Share Save Luis Barrucho BBC World Service Share Save

Getty Images The US gives automatic citizenship to anyone born in the country, but this principle is not the norm globally

President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship in the US has sparked a Supreme Court legal challenge along with anxiety among immigrant families. For nearly 160 years, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution has established the principle that anyone born in the country is a US citizen. But as part of his crackdown on migration numbers, Trump is seeking to deny citizenship to children of migrants who are either in the country illegally or on temporary visas. The move appears to have public backing. A January poll by Emerson College suggests many more Americans back Trump than oppose him on this. But how does this compare to citizenship laws around the world?

Birthright citizenship worldwide

Birthright citizenship, or jus soli (right of the soil), is not the norm globally. The US is one of about 30 countries – mostly in the Americas – that grant automatic citizenship to anyone born within their borders. In contrast, many countries in Asia, Europe, and parts of Africa adhere to the jus sanguinis (right of blood) principle, where children inherit their nationality from their parents, regardless of their birthplace. Other countries have a combination of both principles, also granting citizenship to children of permanent residents.

John Skrentny, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego, believes that, though birthright citizenship or jus soli is common throughout the Americas, “each nation-state had its own unique road to it”. “For example, some involved slaves and former slaves, some did not. History is complicated,” he says. In the US, the 14th Amendment was adopted to address the legal status of freed slaves. However, Mr Skrentny argues that what almost all had in common was “building a nation-state from a former colony”. “They had to be strategic about whom to include and whom to exclude, and how to make the nation-state governable,” he explains. “For many, birthright citizenship, based on being born in the territory, made for their state-building goals. “For some, it encouraged immigration from Europe; for others, it ensured that indigenous populations and former slaves, and their children, would be included as full members, and not left stateless. It was a particular strategy for a particular time, and that time may have passed.”

Shifting policies and growing restrictions

In recent years, several countries have revised their citizenship laws, tightening or revoking birthright citizenship due to concerns over immigration, national identity, and so-called “birth tourism” where people visit a country in order to give birth. India, for example, once granted automatic citizenship to anyone born on its soil. But over time, concerns over illegal immigration, particularly from Bangladesh, led to restrictions. Since December 2004, a child born in India is only a citizen if both parents are Indian, or if one parent is a citizen and the other is not considered an illegal migrant. Many African nations, which historically followed jus soli under colonial-era legal systems, later abandoned it after gaining independence. Today, most require at least one parent to be a citizen or a permanent resident. Citizenship is even more restrictive in most Asian countries, where it is primarily determined by descent, as seen in nations such as China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Europe has also seen significant changes. Ireland was the last country in the region to allow unrestricted jus soli. It abolished the policy after a June 2004 poll, when 79% of voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring at least one parent to be a citizen, permanent resident, or legal temporary resident. The government said change was needed because foreign women were travelling to Ireland to give birth in order to get an EU passport for their babies.

Reuters Rights groups had feared a constitutional court ruling in the Dominican Republic would strip tens of thousands of citizenship, mostly of Haitian descent

One of the most severe changes occurred in the Dominican Republic, where, in 2010, a constitutional amendment redefined citizenship to exclude children of undocumented migrants. A 2013 Supreme Court ruling made this retroactive to 1929, stripping tens of thousands – mostly of Haitian descent – of their Dominican nationality. Rights groups warned that this could leave many stateless, as they did not have Haitian papers either. The move was widely condemned by international humanitarian organisations and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. As a result of the public outcry, the Dominican Republic passed a law in 2014 that established a system to grant citizenship to Dominican-born children of immigrants, particularly favouring those of Haitian descent. Mr Skrentny sees the changes as part of a broader global trend. “We are now in an era of mass migration and easy transportation, even across oceans. Now, individuals also can be strategic about citizenship. That’s why we are seeing this debate in the US now.”

Legal challenges

Reuters President Trump’s executive order is already facing a Supreme Court legal challenge