Ukraine agrees minerals deal in bid to enhance US ties | Invesloan.com

Good morning. In today’s edition of FirstFT Americas we will be covering:

• Details of the mineral deal signed between Ukraine and the US

• Trump’s spending bill that has passed in the House Representatives

• Israel’s plans to seek an indefinite extension to the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal

• Eight positive trends you can look forward to this year

Kyiv and Washington have agreed terms on a minerals deal that officials in Ukraine hope will lead to a long-term security commitment from the US.

The US has dropped demands for a right to $500bn in potential revenue from the deal originally touted by US President Donald Trump.

The final version of the agreement, dated February 24 and seen by the FT, would establish a fund into which Ukraine would contribute 50 per cent of proceeds from the “future monetisation” of state-owned mineral resources, including oil and gas, and associated logistics. The fund would invest in projects in Ukraine.

Although the text lacks explicit security guarantees, the officials argued they had negotiated far more favourable terms and depicted the deal as a way of broadening the relationship with the US.

“The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister who has led the negotiations, told the Financial Times on Tuesday.

A Ukrainian official with knowledge of the matter said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was planning to travel to Washington on Friday to see Donald Trump and formalise the deal.

Zelenskyy’s government will also have to seek approval from Ukraine’s parliament, where opposition MPs have signalled they will, at the very least, have a heated debate before ratifying such a deal. Read more about the deal here.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: The EU reports fourth-quarter trade figures with Ukraine, while France and Germany have consumer confidence data.

• Starmer in the US: The UK prime minister lands in Washington ahead of his first meeting with Trump tomorrow.

• Results: Chip giant Nvidia reports, as do Anheuser-Busch InBev, Aston Martin Lagonda, Danone, eBay and Salesforce. See our Week Ahead newsletter for the full list.

Join FT experts tomorrow in a subscriber-only webinar as they discuss Europe’s future after Trump’s return to the White House. Register for free.

Five more top stories

1. The House of Representatives has passed a budget resolution that calls for trillions of dollars in tax and spending cuts in a victory for Trump as he seeks to enact sweeping changes in fiscal policy. The bill proposes $4.5tn in tax cuts, about $2tn in spending cuts and allocating hundreds of billions of dollars more for the military and border security over a decade. Alex Rogers has more from Washington.

• ‘Gold card’: Trump said the US would offer permanent residency and a route to citizenship for wealthy foreigners if they paid $5mn under a new scheme.

• Apple bug: An issue with the tech giant’s voice-to-text function briefly swapped words with an “r” consonant — including “racist” — for “Trump”.

• Press corps: The White House said it would select the journalists allowed to have the closest access to the president, overturning decades of precedent.

2. The EU will stick to its world-leading climate goals but water down some of its green rules for companies, the bloc’s economic competitiveness tsar has said. European Commission vice-president Teresa Ribera told the FT there was “a fine line that we need to strike”.

3. Israel is seeking an indefinite extension to the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza rather than moving to a planned second stage designed to lay the groundwork for a more lasting settlement, several people familiar with the matter have said. The initial 42-day phase of the deal is scheduled to conclude on Saturday. Read the full story.

4. Exclusive: Finance ministers from several big economies are poised to skip G20 meetings in South Africa this week, underscoring the declining relevance of the body at a time when global co-operation is faltering. Here are the countries expected to snub the Cape Town meetings.

5. South Korea’s fertility rate has risen for the first time in nine years. The average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime increased from 0.72 in 2023 to 0.75 in 2024. It is still the lowest rate in the world, but officials hope it is a sign the country has turned a corner. Read more here.

The Big Read

Vaccine scepticism was long a fringe phenomenon, with anti-vaxxers treated as cranks. But now its leading proponents are grabbing the political limelight in a manner that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. With traditional political parties around the world struggling to appear relevant, the anti-vaccine movement has become a new anti-establishment political force filling the vacuum.

We’re also reading and listening to . . . 

• Putin’s dealmaker: Former Goldman Sachs banker Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s go-between with Gulf countries, helped pave the way for US-Russia talks.

• ‘Price walking’: You sign up for a deal at a low teaser rate, but suddenly the price jumps when it’s time to renew. Sound familiar? Jonathan Guthrie has a few tips for you.

• 🎧 Stagflation? In the latest Unhedged podcast, Rob Armstrong and Aiden Reiter discuss how slowing growth and stubborn inflation seem to be putting a chill on a once exuberant market.

Chart of the day

Wall Street stocks slipped yesterday after a round of gloomy data on consumer confidence deepened investors’ concerns that Trump’s tariffs would knock the world’s biggest economy.

Take a break from the news . . . 

With headlines providing a gloomy forecast for the year ahead, the FT Edit team has compiled a list of eight things you can look forward to in 2025 including sporting glory, advances in vaccines and a once-in-a-lifetime planetary alignment this Friday.