WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit the White House on Friday to sign a long-sought minerals deal that will closely tie the two countries together for years to come.
Trump made the announcement at the start of the first Cabinet meeting of his second term, hailing the deal as “a very big agreement.”
The Republican president has long complained that the United States has spent too much taxpayer money to support Ukraine in the war with Russia that began when the Kremlin invaded three years ago. Trump has framed the emerging deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s deposits of so-called rare earth minerals — used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries — as a chance for Kyiv to pay back the U.S. for aid already sent for the war effort under Democratic President Joe Biden.
“The previous …