The U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal is much more favorable to the U.S. than to Ukraine.

9 May 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

On the night of May 8th, Ukraine’s Strana News headlined (as translated into English) “Ukraine supported the new truce, the Rada approved the subsoil deal”, and reported that secret provisions in the Ukraine-U.S. deal on Ukraine’s mineral resources grant the U.S. effective control and no obligations, while Ukraine loses control over those assets and will have numerous obligations to the U.S., so that, “if the ‘Ukrainian partner’ violates something, ‘it will not see any distributions, and Ukrainian managers will lose all voting rights in the Council and relevant committees of the Fund. The agreements do not provide for US liability for violations on their part.’”

Nonetheless, the Ukrainian legislature or “Rada” voted unanimously, 338 to 0, to accept the deal. Here are highlights from that news report:

⁃ Ukraine must transfer 50% of royalties and payments from new mineral extraction licenses to the fund. The US can count military aid (if any) as an investment contribution, but the Americans' obligation to provide this military aid to Ukraine is not specified in the agreement.

⁃ The Fund does not pay taxes in Ukraine, and the terms of the agreement take precedence over Ukrainian laws. Ukraine guarantees free conversion of hryvnia into dollars and withdrawal of funds abroad. As was later specified in the Cabinet of Ministers, the Fund will be registered in the state of Delaware. …

⁃ All investment projects in the mining sector are required to disclose information to the fund. It is not allowed to offer third parties better conditions than the fund.

At the same time, there are at least two additional agreements, which the Ukrainian government calls "technical". They have not been published, and the Ukrainian government insists that negotiations on them are still underway. Although many insiders and media, both Ukrainian and Western, write that these documents have already been signed by the government. And the most important points of the deal, as well as the advantages for the Americans, are contained there.

Judging by the leaks in the press, under these additional agreements, which did not reach the Rada, the Americans' control over the development of new Ukrainian deposits will be close to total. At the same time, there are no obligations to invest in Ukraine or to supply weapons in the document. But there are numerous obligations of Ukraine and even strict sanctions for their violation are prescribed.

As reported by Zerkalo Nedeli, “the US will have an advantage both in managing the Fund and in participating in Ukrainian investment projects.

According to the publication, the fund will be managed by a Council with an equal number of representatives from Ukraine and the United States, but it will be assisted by four committees, which will have more Americans:

- investment committee - three US managers, two Ukrainian managers;

- Administrative Committee - three US managers and two Ukrainian managers;

- an audit committee responsible for engaging third-party auditors and hiring and overseeing contribution assessment consultants - two US managers and two Ukrainian managers;

- project search committee - three Ukrainian managers and two US managers.

At the same time, according to the terms of the agreements, if the "Ukrainian partner" violates something, "it will not see any distributions, and Ukrainian managers will lose all voting rights in the Council and relevant committees of the Fund." The agreements do not provide for US liability for violations on their part.

It is also reported that American investors will be the first to receive information on potential projects in the field of mineral extraction and infrastructure, consider it for up to three months, and only in the event of their refusal, other investors will be able to receive the project, but for six months the conditions cannot be more financially advantageous than those offered to the Americans. This has already been partially confirmed by the Ukrainian government.

The same applies to the purchase of products extracted from the deposits. That is, for all projects in the field of mineral extraction and in other areas provided for by the agreement, the Americans will have the "right of the first night”. …

the Rada's foreign affairs committee, which recommended ratifying the agreement yesterday, made an important reservation. According to it, "any additional agreements necessary for the implementation of the Agreement ... may not go beyond the provisions of this Agreement and establish international legal obligations for Ukraine that are not provided for by it," the preamble to the committee's conclusion reads.

That is, according to the logic of this amendment, voting for the framework agreement does not mean that the Rada automatically approved other agreements concluded within the framework of the deal. And all subsequent agreements cannot go beyond the ratified agreement.

But this agreement is extremely abstract. And for all the specifics there are references to the Limited Partnership Agreement. That is, the latter document will definitely "go beyond" the ratified agreement, since it will be much more detailed and specific. In essence, it is the main element of the subsoil deal.

Thus, if the subsoil agreement is ratified with this amendment, it will mean that either Zelensky will have to submit the Limited Partnership Agreement to the Rada for ratification, or then it will be possible to challenge the subsoil deal at any time and declare it invalid, since it was not fully ratified by parliament.

That reality is fundamentally different than had previously been reported. For example, on May 1st, CNN had headlined “A ‘historic economic partnership?’ What we know about Trump’s Ukraine mineral deal”, and reported that, “The deal gives the US preferential, but not exclusive, rights to mineral extraction in Ukraine and states that Kyiv will have the final say in what and where is being mined. Ukraine will also retain the ownership of the subsoil. ‘All resources on our territory and in our territorial waters belong to Ukraine. It is the Ukrainian state that determines where and what to extract,’ said Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who signed the deal on behalf her country.”

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.