By DAVID E. SANGER NYTimes News Service
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President Donald Trump told his Cabinet on Wednesday that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine was expected to come to Washington to sign a framework agreement enabling the United States to share in the country’s mineral wealth, but he insisted the United States would not be providing security guarantees to Ukraine in return.

Obtaining such guarantees from Washington, the only nuclear-armed power truly capable of standing up to Russia, had been Zelenskyy’s central demand. His greatest concern is being forced into a ceasefire, only to discover Russia uses the time to rebuild its military, regroup and attempt to seize his country again.

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But Trump made clear that if there are to be any such promises, they will have to come from Europe, with little backup from Washington.

“I’m not going to provide security guarantees beyond very much,” he said at his first Cabinet meeting, which was dominated by discussion of the firing of government workers and other efforts being overseen by Elon Musk, who has taken an outsized role in the administration. “We’re going to have Europe do that.”

Trump had not spoken publicly about what role, if any, the United States would play in deterring Russia from one day restarting the conflict. He stood in silence on Monday when French President Emmanuel Macron repeatedly brought up the topic of security guarantees at a joint news conference at the White House.

Trump’s flat statement that the United States would not be party to any security guarantees may accelerate an end to the fighting, but ultimately could embolden President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The Russian leader is far more likely to agree to a ceasefire if he knows that the United States would not step in should he change his mind and attack again.

And Trump’s statement may cement Europe’s fear that he has essentially switched sides in the war, and is seeking a broader normalization of relations with Russia. The prospect that Europe may find itself in the position of supporting Ukraine and continuing to isolate Russia, while Trump takes the opposite position, has rattled NATO allies and led the incoming German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, to declare that Germany must seek “independence from the USA.”

Trump’s Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has argued that the existence of an American financial interest in Ukraine’s reserves of titanium, lithium, uranium and rare earth minerals is the best security guarantee that the country could have.

“I call it an economic security guarantee,” Bessent said last weekend. He has been negotiating the minerals agreement with Zelenskyy and his aides.

Trump has cast the mineral agreement as compensation for what the United States has spent in Ukraine so far — an amount he has vastly inflated to $350 billion. In fact, the most generous estimates of what the United States has spent over the past three years is roughly half of that amount, even if one includes the cost of replenishing of American stockpiles — money that remains in the United States.

The idea of involving the United States in the monetization of Ukraine’s natural resources actually began with the Ukrainians, during the Biden administration. At the time the essence of the concept was the revenue from the mining would cover future military expenditures and the rebuilding of the most devastated parts of the country.

But under Trump, the negotiation took a very different turn, one more reminiscent of a colonial power demanding tribute.

Bessent was sent to Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv a little more than a week ago to get Zelenskyy to sign a deal that would have required the country to pay $500 billion to the United States. The Ukrainian leader refused, sparking a confrontation with the United States that included Trump calling him a “dictator,” while refusing to use the same word to describe Putin.

In the interest of keeping the uneasy relationship with Washington alive, however, Zelenskyy appears to have changed his objectives. His hope is to sign something on Friday in Washington that can be described as the mining deal Trump has demanded, but that would be more of a memorandum of understanding, with many of the details to be worked out later.

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