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US Finance Minister defended Donald Trump’s incentive for an agreement with Ukraine to develop his natural resources and critical minerals, saying that the plan would encourage growth in the country and does not involve any forced economic pressure.
Comments Scotta Bessent -au OP-ed for the Financial Times Come on how Trump’s administration officials are trying to conclude what they claim to be an economic partnership with Kiyiv as part of their wider diplomatic encouragement to conclude a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have so far rejected US demands for such an agreement, but US officials apply intense pressure on Kiev in their encouragement to agree.
Officials in Kiev believe that Trump’s attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week, describing him as a dictator and suggesting that Ukraine, not Russia, began the war, the ways of a strong Kiev Ciiva into the Mineral Agreement.
In OP-ed, Bessent presented some details of the US proposal. He said that the revenues of Ukraine from “natural resources, infrastructure and other assets” “be” assigned to the Fund for a long -term renovation and development of Ukraine, where the United States will have economic and government in these future investments. ”
However, Bessent did not say how much income from the mineral was removed to the Fund or how much it would be paid to the US. Trump presented a mineral agreement as a way to ensure that Ukraine pays off previous US military assistance.
The earlier draft of the agreement reported by the Ukrainian media, for which Ukrainian officials said was correct, stated that the fund would be founded “with the supply (legal request) of such income in favor of the United States.”
It has also been said that the US will decide how much the fund will pay off for the renovation projects.
In his OP-Ed, Besent said the agreement will include “high transparency, responsibility, corporate management and legal frameworks needed to attract robust private investment for post-war growth in Ukraine” and US involvement “would not leave room for corruption and insiders’ arrangements ”.
US Treasury Minister traveled to Ukraine earlier this month on his first international trip to set an agreement Vodimir Zelenskyypresident.
Although US officials, including Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, said they believe that the deal is close, Ukrainian officials are more kept.
“The draft on the table now needs more work,” said the person involved in negotiations. “We see many obligations of Ukraine and very weak things (offered) on the American side, so the draft, as today, is not ready to accept at the President’s level.”
Negotiations passed early in the morning on the third day and will continue on Saturday and probably on Sunday.
Zelenskyy said that Bessento’s original proposal was not in the interest of Ukraine, as it required 50 percent of the right to a rare country and critical minerals of the country in exchange for past military assistance and did not contain any offer of future assistance.
Senior Ukrainian officials said they spent last week making a counterprotage, which they spoke with on Thursday with an American special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.
Zelenskyy wants Trump’s administration to provide security guarantees in a new proposal before they agree.
In OP-ed, the Besent said that the terms of the agreement “will ensure that countries that do not contribute to the defense of Ukraine will not be able to benefit from its reconstruction or those investments.”
Bessent also suggested that the United States is not trying to forcibly use the control over the natural resources of Ukraine. “Let’s be clear that this is not. The United States would not take ownership of physical assets in Ukraine. Nor would it be answered by Ukraine with more debt. This type of economic pressure, while assigned it by other global actors, would not improve American or Ukrainian interests “, he wrote.