Key Takeaways
President Trump is interested in securing access to Ukraine’s vast mineral supplies as partial repayment for U.S. military and economic aid.
Ukraine’s wealth is substantial, including 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals and metals and enormous energy wealth.
Russia has secured a substantial amount of Ukraine’s known mineral wealth in the lands under its control.
Ukraine has expressed interest in arrangements with its supporters via its “Victory Plan.”
The Biden administration had begun preliminary talks to secure agreements, which President Trump may seek to improve upon.
In exchange for military and economic aid, President Donald Trump wants Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and other minerals such as uranium, titanium, lithium, and graphite, of which it has an abundance. Ukraine’s existing “Victory Plan” indicates that it would work to supply its strategic partners with “natural resources and critical metals worth trillions of U.S. dollars.” A deal outlining deeper cooperation between the United States and Ukraine on minerals had been in the works for months before President Trump took office in January, and he could seek amendments to that in line with his priorities.
Ukraine houses 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals and metals and is a significant source of fossil fuels. Ukraine has some of the world’s largest reserves of titanium and iron ore, fields of untapped lithium, and massive coal deposits worth tens of trillions of dollars. But there is a catch. Most of those coal deposits, along with significant amounts of other energy and mineral deposits used in everything from aircraft parts to smartphones, are concentrated in the east, where Russia has gained the most land from its invasions of Ukraine. If Russia can permanently acquire these lands, Ukraine will lose these minerals and other reserves, including natural gas, oil, and rare earth minerals essential for specific high-tech components.
The Washington Post estimates that at least $12.4 trillion worth of Ukraine’s energy deposits, metals, and minerals are now under Russian control. In addition to 63%of the country’s coal deposits, Russia has control of 11%of its oil deposits, 20%of its natural gas deposits, 42%of its metals, and 33%of its deposits of rare earth and other critical minerals, including lithium. Some of the deposits were overtaken during either Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, where Ukraine lost 7% of its land mass, or the Ukrainian government’s eight-year war with Russian-backed separatists in the east. The wars have scared away critical Western investment in the energy and mining sector, so much of Ukraine’s mineral wealth is undeveloped and, likely, undiscovered.
Russia has seized 41 coal fields, 27 natural gas sites, 14 propane sites, nine oil fields, six iron ore deposits, two titanium ore sites, two zirconium ore sites, one strontium site, one lithium site, one uranium site, one gold deposit and a significant quarry of limestone previously used for Ukrainian steel production in the east. Other parts of Ukraine, including the Dnieper River basin that runs through the country’s center and the Carpathian Mountains in the West, have vast deposits of minerals and natural gas and remain under Ukraine’s control. The Russian-Ukraine war is a good reminder of the importance of essential energy and minerals in geopolitics, which is so often ignored in debates about mining and energy development in the comfortable and presently peaceful West.
The figure below from the U.S. Geological Survey illustrates the reliance of the United States on foreign sources for raw and processed mineral materials. In 2024, imports comprised more than one-half of U.S. consumption for 46 nonfuel mineral commodities, and the United States was 100% net import reliant for 15 of those. Of the 50 mineral commodities identified in the “2022 Final List of Critical Minerals,” the United States was 100% net import reliant for 12, and an additional 28 critical mineral commodities (including 14 lanthanides, which are listed under rare earths) had a net import reliance greater than 50% of consumption.
Thus, the United States largely depends on imports for the minerals it needs, many of which come from China. China has long dominated the global production of rare earth minerals and other strategically important materials. It is responsible for nearly 90% of the global processing of rare earth minerals and is the world’s largest producer of graphite and titanium and a major lithium processor. Of the 50 critical materials, Ukraine has 22 deposits of them.
That does not mean that the United States does not have mineral resources, but those resources are largely undeveloped. During the Biden administration, mine leases were revoked, Alaska was denied an access road to a highly mineralized mining district promised under federal law, permits were delayed, and fauna and flora were listed as endangered to either slow or halt the development of mines per the wishes of environmental activists. As such, it can take decades to develop these mines, making the United States subjected to the whims of China, which has recently blocked the sale of “dual-use items” related to gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard minerals to the United States. This is not the first time China has restricted exports to the United States and its allies. In 2010, China placed a two-month embargo on rare earth metal exports to Japan during a territorial dispute between the two nations.
President Trump recently placed an additional 10% tariff on imported goods from China. In retaliation, China placed economic measures on the United States to include new export controls on more than two dozen metal products and related technologies. While the controls do not cover the most critical materials the United States needs, they indicate that China is prepared to use its mineral wealth as leverage in trade disputes. Clearly, the United States needs to develop its own mineral wealth and processing capacity and institute agreements with allies that have needed minerals. In its rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States forfeited a trillion dollars of mineral wealth, which President Trump should not do in Ukraine. President Trump is also interested in Greenland’s mineral wealth and other natural resources.
Conclusion
President Trump wants a deal with Ukraine for its rare earth elements and other minerals in return for continued military aid. The country has deposits of lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite, and nickel, according to the World Economic Forum. One estimate is that Ukraine’s mineral wealth is at $12.4 trillion, which is likely underestimated since much of its mineral resources are undeveloped. The wars with Russia have scared away Western investment in Ukraine that would develop these resources. The Russia-Ukraine war and its underlying focus on natural resources should remind policymakers of the importance of energy-related minerals and essential commodities to economies and people worldwide.
The United States is highly dependent on imports for its mineral supplies, which China dominates. With few oil and gas resources, China has been investing in its mineral wealth, at home and abroad, for decades as it saw those minerals as critical to the green energy transition that became the focus of Western countries.
