After months of tense negotiations – including one particularly fiery meeting in the White House Oval Office between United States President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February – Washington and Kyiv have finalised a long-awaited minerals deal.

The agreement, signed in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, will give the US preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals and natural resources licences. In return, the US will provide financial and military assistance to Ukraine to help the country rebuild after the war.

The deal comes at a critical moment as the US had threatened to step away from its mediation effort to bring an end to the more than three-year conflict.

Trump, who has heavily promoted the deal, said it represents “payback” for the $350bn that he claims Washington has spent on supporting Ukraine’s war effort.

It is unclear how Trump has arrived at the figure of $350bn. Official figures from the US Department of Defense put total spending on Ukraine at $182.8bn between January 2022 and December 2024.

Regardless, in Kyiv, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal hailed the agreement as “good, equal and beneficial” for both sides.

Few details have been released about the precise terms of the deal, which was signed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko on Wednesday.

In a statement after the signing, Bessent said the “historic” economic partnership would send a clear signal to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process that ends what he called a “cruel and senseless war”.

Under the deal, the United States-Ukraine Reinvestment Fund will be established. This fund will be jointly managed by Ukraine and the US on an equal partnership basis. Ukraine will maintain full ownership and control of the country’s resources and will determine what and where minerals may be extracted.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy said the US will contribute to the fund directly or through “new military assistance”, and Kyiv will contribute 50 percent of revenues from the exploitation of natural resources via new licences in the fields of critical materials, oil and gas.