Rock paper signed. After months of getting close only to come up short—including a rocky Oval Office meeting in late February between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—the United States and Ukraine quietly struck a much-anticipated economic partnership on Wednesday. The agreement is intended to open US access to Ukraine’s natural resources, including its critical minerals, while helping to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction. What does the partnership entail? Where do Washington and Kyiv stand with each other now? And what message does the deal send to Russia? Below, Atlantic Council experts dig into the details and offer their answers.
This deal gives Trump a concrete interest in Ukraine’s survival
This is a bad day for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The deal is a plus for US economic and national security policy. One, it is essential for the United States to have friends providing critical minerals. It cannot be dependent on adversaries such as China or Russia for that. So that is a plus. It is also positive for Ukraine, and not just because it now has an investor clearly committed to working on this subject of Ukrainian economic development. More importantly, this deal gives Trump—in terms he understands—concrete interest in Ukraine’s long-term survival as a secure, economically viable state.
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