US Treasury: Trump believes the mineral agreement "would create more leverage" against Russia

Scott Bessent, US Secretary of the Treasury, has stated at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles that US President Donald Trump intends to use the agreement on mineral resources with Ukraine as a tool to pressure Russia in the context of peace negotiations.

As reported by Milken Institute, Bessent said that Trump had the idea for the mineral agreement and noted that the American leader was confident that it would yield several results.

Bessent said that one result was additional leverage over the Russian leadership.

"One, it would create more leverage for him with the Russian leadership when it was time to go to them," Bessent said.

He also said that the idea was to sign an agreement that would show that "there is no daylight between the US and Ukrainian people".

"It would be a symbol to Ukrainian people that the US is still there. It would be a symbol to a tired American public, sceptical of more financial commitments, that it was possible to have a shared prosperity with Ukraine, and then it would, in essence, be a tacit security guarantee because of the economic partnership."

On 30 April, Ukraine and the US signed a framework agreement on economic partnership. Earlier, European Pravda revealed the main details of the agreement, which mentions 57 minerals and US military aid.

US President Donald Trump said that the mineral agreement would give the US more than it had spent on Ukraine.

Recently, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal expressed his expectation that the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) would ratify the signed agreement on mineral resources with the US by 8 May.

At the moment, the so-called technical agreements, without which it is impossible to draw conclusions about the advisability of ratification and the long-term consequences of the agreement for Ukraine, have not been drafted, signed or published.