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Putin offers Trump joint rare earth metals exploration projects
bne IntelliNews
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed joint exploration of Russia’s rare earth metals deposits and the supply of aluminium to the US market as part of a potential economic agreement, Reuters reported on February 25.
The offer follows remarks by US President Donald Trump, who said that “major economic development transactions with Russia” were forthcoming as part of the Ukraine ceasefire talks that kicked off in Riyadh on February 18. Within hours of Trump’s statement, Putin convened a meeting with ministers and economic advisers to discuss rare earth metals.
“We, by the way, would be ready to offer (joint projects with) our American partners, and when I say ‘partners,’
I mean not only administrative and governmental structures but also
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companies, if they showed interest in joint work,” Putin said on state television after the meeting.
He added that Russia possessed significantly greater rare earth metal (REM) resources than Ukraine and dismissed the prospect of a US-Ukraine deal in this sector as a concern.
As bne IntelliNews reported, Ukraine has almost no deposits of REMs, but does have considerable mineral resources that could be developed. Washington and Kyiv are currently locked in nego- tiation over a harsh minerals deal where Trump is demanding half the revenue from any project paid into a fund until $500bn is collected. Some have comparted the terms of the deal
as equivalent to reparations on terms that are worse than the Versailles treaty imposed on Germany at the end of WWI.
Russia holds the world’s fifth-largest reserves of rare earth metals, estimated at 3.8mn metric tonnes, according to US Geological Survey data, and at 10mn by other surveys.
China with 44mn tonnes is the world leader followed by Brazil, India and Australia all with larger reserves. Ukraine doesn’t rank globally on rare earth element deposits Putin suggested that potential exploration agreements could also extend to deposits in eastern Ukraine, which Russia has controlled since its military intervention began three years ago.
Putin also proposed that Russian com- panies could resume supplying up to 2mn tons of aluminium annually to the US market, should trade restrictions
be lifted. Before Washington imposed tariffs in 2023, Russia accounted for approximately 15% of US aluminium imports.