Six Countries, One Deal

The deal is the same every time. A country sits on deposits of lithium, rare earths, or tungsten that the United States needs. The Trump administration offers security cooperation, missile sales, or development funding. In return, American firms get preferential access to the minerals. The template has now been applied to six countries on four continents, and the president has said so himself.

We’re also signing agreements in various locations to unlock rare earths and minerals and lots of other things all over the world. — Donald Trump

In Ukraine, the April 2025 minerals agreement created a US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund granting American firms preferential access to uranium, graphite, titanium, and lithium projects ^[1]. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a December 2025 partnership trades mineral access for security cooperation against rebel groups ^[2]. Pakistan secured missile sales and terror designations in exchange for rare earth access from Balochistan ^[3]. Brazil granted the U.S. exclusive rights to all rare earth production from the Serra Verde mine through 2030, backed by $465 million in Development Finance Corporation funding ^[4]. Australia signed an $8.5 billion deal that includes a Pentagon-funded gallium refinery in Western Australia ^[5]. Kazakhstan finalized a $1.1 billion agreement to jointly develop tungsten deposits, signed on the sidelines of the C5+1 summit Trump hosted ^[6]. The repetition is the argument. Each deal follows the same structure: the U.S. provides something a partner government wants and receives mineral rights in return. The administration has been explicit about the strategy. Treasury Secretary Bessent announced price floors and forward buying across seven strategic markets, and the government took equity stakes in domestic firms including MP Materials, Trilogy Metals, and Lithium Americas ^[7][8]. The USGS critical minerals list was expanded to 60 materials. Interior Secretary Burgum warned that the U.S. imported 80 percent of the rare earth elements it used in 2024 ^[9]. While Washington builds a global web of mineral-for-security deals, Europe is funding Ukraine’s reconstruction on entirely different terms. The European Union has not demanded resource rights. It has deployed grants, loans, and frozen Russian assets. At the Ukraine Recovery Conference in June 2026, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen framed the effort in democratic and humanitarian language.

Our ambition is not only to help Ukraine endure, it is to help Ukraine grow and prosper as a free and European country. — Ursula von der Leyen

The EU granted Ukraine a €90 billion interest-free loan in December 2025, with repayment required only after Ukraine receives war reparations from Russia ^[10]. It separately proposed a €210 billion reconstruction fund backed by frozen Russian assets after Trump paused new U.S. funding ^[11]. Canada’s $51 million aid package, announced in April 2026, covers humanitarian aid, voter education, and veteran reintegration: the traditional reconstruction categories the U.S. has largely abandoned ^[12]. The contrast is not just in instruments but in framing. Trump has stated his position plainly.

there will be no more handouts from the US to Ukraine — Donald Trump

A RAND economist noted that Trump has indicated the financial responsibility for Ukraine’s recovery now lies with Europe ^[13]. The U.S. retains its mineral extraction rights through the bilateral fund while offloading the $588 billion reconstruction bill to European allies. That bill is nearly three times Ukraine’s projected 2025 GDP ^[14]. The diplomatic architecture is ambitious. The industrial reality is not. Start with Ukraine, the centerpiece of the strategy. The U.S. and Russia secretly drafted a 28-point peace proposal requiring Ukraine to cede the entire Donbas region ^[15]. Donbas contains much of Ukraine’s mineral wealth. The same administration that secured preferential access to Ukrainian lithium and titanium is simultaneously pressuring Kyiv to surrender the territory those minerals sit beneath. Zelenskyy has framed the choice in stark terms.

either losing its dignity or the risk of losing a key partner — Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Even if a settlement preserved Ukrainian control of some deposits, extraction in a war zone faces a more basic obstacle. BlackRock vice chairman Philipp Hildebrand, whose firm was involved in designing the reconstruction fund, has described the problem bluntly.

It's nearly impossible to invest into a war zone. — Philipp Hildebrand

The domestic side of the strategy is no further along. The U.S. invested $1.6 billion in USA Rare Earth to build a domestic mine-to-magnet supply chain, but the company remains years from revenue.

USA Rare Earth’s heavy critical minerals project is essential to restoring U.S. critical mineral independence. — Howard Lutnick

The International Energy Agency projects that meeting global critical mineral demand through 2040 will require over $750 billion in mining and refining investments. Copper alone needs $310 billion and nickel $280 billion ^[16]. China still controls more than 90% of battery-grade graphite refining, and supply gaps for copper and lithium are expected to persist through 2035 ^[16]. The DRC deal faces its own version of the same problem. Rebel leader Nangaa denounced the partnership, noting that M23 rebels control key mineral zones including Rubaya ^[2]. A signature on a memorandum does not move a mine behind rebel lines. The contradiction is sharpest in Ukraine, but it is not confined there. The template assumes that American security guarantees can unlock mineral access. In practice, the minerals the U.S. is securing rights to are often in territory those guarantees cannot reach: contested by rebels in eastern Congo, buried in a war zone in Donbas, or locked inside domestic processing chains that remain years from production. The six deals share a structure. They also share a question that none of them yet answers: whether a signature on a memorandum can produce a mine where the ground itself is contested.