Trump on Ukraine's NATO membership: US President Donald Trump appears to have ruled out any prospects of Ukraine getting NATO membership, as he said Kyiv “could forget about” joining the security bloc. Trump's statement comes just ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to the US.
“NATO, you can forget about it,” Trump said. “I think that's probably the reason the whole thing started," he added.
Not tenable, says Trump on Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO
While the Republican president declined to mention what concessions he would ask the two sides to make, he clearly stated his administration's position that "Ukraine's aspiration to join NATO, the Western military alliance, is not tenable".
Trump, who addressed his first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, also confirmed Zelenskyy's visit to the White House on Friday to sign what he referred to as “a very big agreement.”
New deal to give US access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals
The US President said that the upcoming deal with Ukraine would give the US access to Ukraine's deposits of so-called rare earth minerals—used in the aerospace, defence, and nuclear industries. This will enable Ukraine to pay back the US for aid already sent for the war effort under Democratic President Joe Biden.
In a news conference on Wednesday, Zelenskyy also said that a framework of an economic deal had been reached, but that it did not yet include US security guarantees, which his country sees as vital.
Ukraine likely to get no security gurantee from US
Notably, the latest version of the agreement, as reported by AP, says that the US “supports Ukraine's efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace." However, it does not explicitly mention any US commitment to provide them.
Since returning to office last month, Trump let Ukraine know that he wanted something in return for tens of billions of dollars in US help for Ukraine. The White House has applied heavy pressure on Ukraine to grant America access to its vast reserves of minerals.
Initially, Zelenskyy opposed US offers, arguing they did not contain adequate security assurances for Ukraine and that the proposed price tag of USD 500 billion would saddle generations of Ukrainians with debt. But Kyiv is also keen to use the investments as a way of locking the US into Ukraine's fate.
(With inputs from AP)
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