The Trump administration appeared to be making progress on Friday toward a deal that would give the United States valuable mineral rights in Ukraine.
The movement came after a week in which President Trump, initially rebuffed on an agreement, turned up the pressure by assailing Ukraine and suggesting he would side with Russia in seeking to end the war there.
Mr. Trump boasted at the White House that he was nearing a deal that could bring up to $500 billion to the United States. “So we’re signing an agreement, hopefully in the next fairly short period of time,” he said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine likewise said his country was working on a draft agreement between the two governments, seemingly tamping down the tensions that had flared with Mr. Trump over a deal.
“This agreement can add value to our relations — what matters most is getting the details right to ensure it truly works,” Mr. Zelensky said in a social media post on Friday.
The signs of easing tensions only underscored how Mr. Trump has struck an overtly transactional and mercantilist stance toward resolving a conflict, started by Russia, that carries profound security implications for Europe and the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Mr. Trump and his allies had waged an all-out pressure campaign against the Ukrainian president, suggesting the United States might abandon the war-torn country and side with Russia, which launched an invasion into its western neighbor three years ago.
During a radio interview Friday with the Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, Mr. Trump said he was “tired” of hearing that Russia was to blame for the war as he painted Mr. Zelensky and his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as the true problems.
“Every time I say, ‘Oh, it’s not Russia’s fault,’ I always get slammed by the fake news,” Mr. Trump said. “But I’m telling you, Biden said the wrong things. Zelensky said the wrong things.”
Mr. Trump emphasized he wanted rare earth and other minerals from Ukraine in exchange for any support from the United States.
“Who knows what rare earth is worth, you know, but at least it’s something,” Mr. Trump said.
In the Oval Office, Mr. Trump continued to rail against Ukraine and Mr. Biden for not extracting more demands out of the country.
“Biden just gave them money — there was no loan, there was no security, was no anything,” Mr. Trump said. “So we’re going to either sign a deal, or there’s going to be a lot of problems with them. So we’re going to sign a deal to get security, because we have to do that.”
Since Mr. Trump began his verbal assault, Kyiv has focused on strengthening its negotiating position as the United States and Russia open talks on ending the war — with or without Ukraine’s involvement. In a flurry of diplomacy on Thursday and Friday, Mr. Zelensky spoke with half a dozen leaders in Europe and Canada to shore up other sources of support.
Kyiv and Moscow engaged in direct talks early in the invasion but since April of 2022 have negotiated only over prisoner of war exchanges and to return Ukrainian children from Russia.
The idea of trading natural resources for U.S. assistance was first put forward by Ukraine, but Mr. Zelensky balked when the U.S. proposal suggested that Kyiv provide access to profits from 50 percent of the country’s minerals and energy resources. Mr. Zelensky had also objected that the deal included no American security commitments.
Several aides to Mr. Zelensky believe that a new version of the agreement under discussion on Thursday addresses those concerns, and have now advised Mr. Zelensky to sign it, a person familiar with discussions in the Ukrainian government about the U.S. proposal said on Friday. The shift in some Ukrainian officials’ stance on the deal was first reported by Axios.
In another positive sign for the talks with the United States on resources, Keith Kellogg, the retired lieutenant general who is Mr. Trump’s envoy to Ukraine for settlement negotiations, posted on X praise for Mr. Zelensky as “the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war and his talented national security team.” Mr. Kellogg said he had “extensive and positive discussions” on his visit to Kyiv.
In a statement Friday evening, Mr. Zelensky said his negotiating team was working with U.S. counterparts on “an agreement that can strengthen our relations,” but that the need remained “to work out the details to ensure its effectiveness.”
He added: “I look forward to the outcome — a just result.”
Talks had derailed last week after Mr. Zelensky declined to immediately sign a version presented to him by the U.S. treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, on a visit to Kyiv.
Mr. Trump responded with a broadside against Mr. Zelensky’s moral standing in the conflict, falsely saying Ukrainian leaders started the all-out war that began in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky, in turn, said Mr. Trump lived in a “web of disinformation.”
But the U.S. pressure on Kyiv continued. On Thursday, the U.S. national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” that Ukrainian leadership needed “to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal.”
And Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during an interview on Elon Musk’s social media site X that Mr. Zelensky had verbally agreed to deal in a meeting with Vice President JD Vance a week ago, before backing out of it.
“We explained to them: Look, we want to be in joint venture with you, not because we’re trying to steal from your country, but because we think that’s actually a security guarantee,” Mr. Rubio said.
“And he said: Sure, we want to do this deal. It makes all the sense in the world. The only thing is, I need to run it through my legislative process. They have to approve it.”
“I read two days later Zelensky is out there saying, ‘I rejected the deal. I told them no way, that we’re not doing that,’” Mr. Rubio continued. “Well, that’s not what happened in that meeting. So you start to get upset.”
Mr. Zelensky earlier suggested that talks were progressing, in a nightly address to Ukrainians on Thursday after a meeting in Kyiv with the Trump administration’s envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Mr. Kellogg. He said it was “a meeting that restores hope.”
He offered no details on a potential natural resources deal, other than to say that “economy and security must always go hand in hand,” and that his interest was in securing an enduring agreement with the United States.
The Ukrainian government has simultaneously pursued a flurry of diplomacy with Europe, in hopes that Europe might provide security commitments or military aid to fill gaps if the United States withholds support.
Mr. Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials concede that European nations cannot fully replace the full range of military and intelligence assistance the United States provides to Ukraine, but they have been encouraged by discussions of forming a European peacekeeping force to enforce a cease-fire.
On Thursday, Mr. Zelensky spoke by phone with five European leaders, from France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark and Finland, and with the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and on Friday with the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda.
In the nine days since Mr. Trump opened negotiations with Russia in a phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin on Feb. 12, Mr. Zelensky has met or spoken on the phone with European leaders at least nine times. A visit was scheduled for Monday by Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.
And Mr. Macron and the U.K. prime minister, Keir Starmer, will continue to press Ukraine’s case in planned visits to Washington next week, where they are expected to present to the Trump administration what Europe and the United Kingdom can provide Ukraine and to lay out what is still needed from the United States.
