President Donald Trump said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will come to the U.S. Friday to sign a draft agreement giving the U.S. access to revenue from the country’s natural resources, even as the Ukrainian leader said the deal wasn’t completed.

“That’s now confirmed, and we’re going to be signing an agreement, which will be a very big agreement,” Trump told reporters Wednesday as he held the first Cabinet meeting of his second term in office.

Zelenskyy said he received an invitation to meet with Trump after negotiators secured a draft accord. But he told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday that he needed time to study the text and consult with European allies. He indicated that the draft appeared acceptable because it wouldn’t condemn Ukraine to being a “debtor” nation after some of the Trump team’s initial demands were dropped.

“This deal may have a big success — or pass quietly,” Zelenskyy said, cautioning that a trip to Washington was still up in the air. “The big success will depend on President Donald Trump.”

A meeting between the American and Ukrainian presidents is contingent on Kyiv’s acknowledgment that the agreement is final, according to a White House official. Zelenskyy’s public pronouncements have diverged from what his negotiators have indicated privately, the official said on condition of anonymity.

A Trump-Zelenskyy summit to make a deal could assuage the U.S. president, who lashed out at the Ukrainian leader this month even as Trump rushed ahead with a plan to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in his effort to lock in a ceasefire in the war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago. Zelenskyy had made clear that he wanted a meeting with Trump before a U.S.-Russian summit took place.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that an agreement on resources was “close to the finish line.”

Security guarantees

Zelenskyy’s team had rejected a draft agreement handing the U.S. 50% of revenue from future resource extraction — including minerals, oil and gas as well as infrastructure tied to the resources, because it didn’t provide security guarantees.

The current text, seen by Bloomberg, still doesn’t entail such guarantees, but rather a “durable partnership” via economic ties. The U.S. dropped an initial demand for Kyiv to commit to paying $500 billion from resource extraction as a form of compensation for past U.S. aid, one person said.

Trump said Wednesday that “I’m not going to make security guarantees” because “Europe is the next-door neighbor, but we’re going to make sure everything goes well.” He said it’s a “good thing” that the U.K. and France have said they want to “put so-called peacekeepers on the site.”

“It’s a great deal for Ukraine too, because they get us over there, and we’re going to be working over there,” Trump said. “We’ll be on the land, and, you know, in that way, it’s this sort of automatic security, because nobody’s going to be messing around with our people when we’re there.”

Zelenskyy, who said he would meet European leaders in London after a possible meeting with Trump, said more negotiations would be required to establish the details of a joint fund, as specified in the text, and reinforced his demand for an agreement on security guarantees.

“A ceasefire without security guarantees won’t work,” Zelenskyy said. “The only way is to end the war so it won’t resume tomorrow.”

The agreement is at the heart of a diplomatic push by Trump to fulfill his pledge for a rapid end to the conflict. NATO allies have been stunned by Trump’s overtures to Moscow and sudden lurch away from Kyiv, including the U.S. president sparring with Zelenskyy even as he embraced the Kremlin’s demand that Ukraine hold a wartime election. Holding a ballot is banned under Ukraine’s martial law.

But Trump’s focus on mineral resources has raised questions. Despite reports of $10 trillion in mineral deposits, Ukraine has no major rare-earth reserves that are internationally recognized as economically viable. Most deposits are likely by-products of producing materials like phosphates. Some are in areas of Russian occupation.

The deal may offer Trump a way to encourage buy-in from his supporters for continued backing for Ukraine, particularly if Washington needs Congress to approve additional aid for Ukraine if negotiations with Russia drag on. Ukraine still relies on U.S. and European allies for weapons and ammunition. Trump said on Tuesday the deal would give Kyiv “the right to fight on.”

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With assistance from Aliaksandr Kudrytski and Kate Sullivan.

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