The US is pushing to control all major future infrastructure and mineral investments in Ukraine, potentially gaining a veto over any role for Kyiv’s other allies and undermining its bid for European Union membership.
President Donald Trump’s administration is demanding the “right of first offer” on investments in all infrastructure and natural resources projects under a revised partnership deal with Ukraine, according to a draft of the document obtained by Bloomberg News.
If accepted, the partnership agreement would bestow enormous power on the US to control investments into Ukraine in projects including roads and railways, ports, mines, oil and gas and extraction of critical minerals. It would represent an unprecedented expansion of US economic influence in Europe’s largest country by area just at the time when it is attempting to align with the EU.
The agreement would grant the US first claim on profits transferred into a special reconstruction investment fund that would be controlled by Washington. Crucially, the document states that the US regards the “material and financial benefits” provided to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 as its contribution to that fund.
In effect, this would mean the Trump administration would compel Ukraine to pay for all of the US military and economic support provided since the start of the war before Kyiv received any income from the partnership fund.
The US delivered a revised agreement to officials in Kyiv last weekend after plans for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign an earlier accord fell apart following a tense Oval Office confrontation with Trump last month. The White House said last week that the administration was moving beyond the previously negotiated deal covering critical minerals in Ukraine.
