The Trump administration is pushing for a new, more expansive deal to control Ukraine’s minerals and energy.
Sources have told Reuters that the US has revised its original proposal while offering Kyiv no security guarantees in return.
The new draft deal sent to Kyiv on Sunday and first reported in the Financial Times could undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty, move profits abroad and deepen the war-torn nation’s dependency on Washington, officials warned.
A senior Ukrainian presidential official insisted on Friday there was no finalised draft of a minerals deal with the United States for now and that discussions around it continued.
"Consultations are still happening at the level of the various ministries," the official, Mykhailo Podolyak, said, declining to elaborate.
The new deal requires Ukraine to contribute all income from the use of natural resources managed by state and private enterprises across Ukrainian territory to a joint investment fund.
The terms put forward by Washington go well beyond the deal discussed in the days leading up to the contentious Oval Office meeting last month between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The proposal makes no mention of the US taking ownership of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, according to the summary - something Trump had talked about.
Trump has said a minerals deal will help secure a peace agreement by giving the United States a financial stake in Ukraine's future.
He also sees it as America's way of earning back some of the tens of billions of dollars it has given to Ukraine in financial and military aid since Russia invaded three years ago.
National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt declined to confirm the terms of the latest proposal, but said the deal would strengthen the relationship between the US and Ukraine.
“The mineral deal offers Ukraine the opportunity to form an enduring economic relationship with the United States that is the basis for long term security and peace," said Hewitt.
An earlier version of the deal proposed a joint investment fund where Ukraine would contribute 50% of proceeds from the future profits of the extraction of the state-owned natural resources.
It also set out terms that the US and Ukraine would jointly develop Ukraine’s mineral resources.
Zelensky told reporters on Tuesday that the US had proposed a “major” new deal and that Ukrainian officials were still reviewing its terms.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian president said the US is "constantly" changing the terms of the proposed minerals deal, but added that he did not want Washington to think Kyiv was against the deal.
In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Bessent said the US had “passed along a completed document for the economic partnership” and that Washington hopes to “go to full discussions and perhaps even get signatures next week”.
The new proposal stipulates that the US is given first rights to purchase resources extracted under the agreement and that it recoup all the money it has given Ukraine since 2022, in addition to a 4% annual interest rate, before Ukraine begins to gain access to the fund's profits, according to the summary.
If agreed, the joint investment fund would have a board of five people, three appointed by the US and two by Ukraine, and the funds generated would be converted into foreign currency and transferred abroad, according to the summary.
The fund would be managed by the US International Development Finance Corporation.
