US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced his Treasury chief will travel to Ukraine.
“I am sending Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to Ukraine to meet President (Volodymyr) Zelensky,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “This war must and will end soon — too much death and destruction.”
Saying that the US has “spent billions of dollars globally, with little to show,” Trump argued that “when America is strong, the world is at peace.”
According to sources who spoke to the Bloomberg media outlet, Bessent’s agenda during the discussions in Ukraine is to secure US access to critical minerals.
Ukraine possesses significant reserves of critical minerals, including lithium, titanium, and uranium, which are essential for advanced technologies.
Much of the resources, however, are located in areas currently occupied by Russian forces.
Zelenskyy previously suggested that US involvement in Ukraine’s natural resource sector could help maintain American backing.
“The Americans helped the most, and therefore the Americans should earn the most,” he stated.