Trump demands Ukrainian rare earth metals worth $500bn to ensure US military aid

US President Donald Trump doubled down on his recent demand that Kyiv supply the US with rare earth metals in return for its continued military support on Monday, saying that he intended to negotiate a deal with Ukraine that would see the transfer of metals worth $500 billion to Washington.

Speaking in an interview with Fox News about matters including the Israel-Palestine conflict, trade tariffs, Elon Musk’s involvement in the US government, and the use of plastic straws, Trump rather ominously said that Ukraine “may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday.”

Addressing Trump’s comment on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stressed that “a significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russian”, and pointed to the four Ukrainian regions that the Kremlin claims to have absorbed as evidence of the fact.

“People who, despite many dangers, stood in queues and voted in a referendum to join the Russian Federation — this corresponds in many ways with the words of President Trump”, Peskov told journalists.

Trump said that Ukraine had “essentially agreed” to his terms and also claimed that his administration has been making “tremendous progress” in its efforts to end the war in Ukraine, once again boasting that had he been president in 2022, the war “would have never happened.”

Trump also accused European countries of failing to pay their share of aid to Ukraine, claiming that the US had contributed “more than $300 billion” to Ukraine’s war effort, despite the US government’s own figures putting the total amount of aid provided by the US at $69.5 billion since 2022.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to meet with US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, according to AFP.