Mr. Zelensky, who has shown openness to leveraging Ukraine’s mineral resources in negotiations with allies, said he rejected the deal because it did not tie resource access to U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv in its fight against Russia.
The idea of leveraging Ukraine’s mineral resources began to take shape last summer. Mr. Zelensky’s government, trying to appeal to Mr. Trump’s business-minded approach and fearing he would follow through on his promises to cut off military and financial aid to Ukraine, decided to pitch a deal that would essentially trade Ukrainian critical minerals for American aid.
The Ukrainian president presented the idea to Mr. Trump during a September meeting in New York, and the proposal gained backing from influential political figures, including Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican. It also came after U.S. businessmen — including as Ronald S. Lauder, a wealthy friend of Mr. Trump’s — showed interest in investing in Ukraine’s mineral resources.
Kyiv had always maintained that access to its natural resources would come in exchange for strong security guarantees from Washington. But one of the Ukrainian officials said that the proposal made no such commitment, instead framing the access to Ukraine’s resources as overdue payment for past American military and financial aid.
But there is precedent for Ukraine to mix security and business with the United States under Mr. Trump. In his first term, in 2017, he struck a deal for Ukraine to buy coal from Pennsylvania to replace coal from mines in Ukraine lost under Russian occupation after the 2014 invasion.
But the deal under discussion now, he [Kostiantyn Yelisieiev] said, elevates the approach in ways that could hand Russia a propaganda win by casting the war as a battle for natural resources, not Ukrainian independence or democracy.
“It’s more important to say this is about protecting democracies and defeating Putin,” he said.