US president Donald Trump wants to secure access to Ukrainian critical metals in exchange for continued support in its war against Russia.
"I want to have security of rare earth," Trump said at the White House on Monday. "We are putting in hundreds of billions of dollars and [Ukraine has] great rare earth. And I want security of the rare earth and they're willing to do it."
In order to obtain access to what Trump is calling rare earth, he seeks to negotiate with Ukraine over continued funding. As of 23 October, 2024, the US had appropriated $174bn in supplemental funding in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, of which $111bn was provided for defense-related purposes, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Despite Trump's insisted desire for Ukraine's rare earths, Ukraine neither historically produces rare earthsnor contains significant proven reserves of rare earth metals. Trump was most likely referring to titanium, lithium, and other base and minor metals that the US Geological Survey (USGS) does not consider to be rare earths instead of actual rare earths such as Neodymium and Praseodymium.
Ukraine produced 120,000 metric tonnes (t) of titanium in 2024, according to the USGS, while the US imported 21,400t of titanium ore and concentrates from Ukraine between January and November 2024, according to data from the US Census Bureau.
Lithium is not currently mined in Ukraine, but the country does contain significant unexplored lithium reserves responsible for roughly about one third of all proven reserves in Europe, according to the Ukrainian Geological Survey. One lithium project is currently preparing for primary production and processing.
Ukraine also contains one of the world's largest reserves of graphite, about 19mn t of ore with a graphite content of 5-8pc. One of six known graphite fields currently produces 5,500t of graphite concentrate annually under the operation of Australian mining firm Volt Resources.
There is one beryllium deposit in Ukraine containing 13,900t of beryllium oxide that is currently overseen by Ukrainian mining group BGV and one field containing an unspecified amount of gold, lead, and zinc where production is currently ongoing.
Ukraine contains reserves of 390,000t of nickel, 20,000t of cobalt, 700,000t of chromium oxide, and 101,000t of copper but does not currently mine any of these materials.
Ukraine is also a significant supplier of pig iron, a key steelmaking raw material used by US electric arc furnace (EAF) mills.
Ukraine does not contain significant reserves of tantalum and niobium but does extract non-commercial volumes of the metals as a coproduct of titanium during production.