US President Donald Trump's administration and Ukraine plan to sign a much-talked-about minerals deal after a disastrous Oval Office meeting on Friday, during which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was escorted out of the building, Reuters reports, citing four sources.
According to the same newspaper, three of the sources said that President Donald Trump told his advisers that he wants to announce the agreement in his speech to Congress on Tuesday night, warning however that the agreement has not yet been signed and the situation could change.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while the Ukrainian presidency and the Ukrainian embassy in Washington also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The deal was "frozen" on Friday after a failed meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that resulted in the Ukrainian leader's "expulsion" from the White House.
Zelensky had traveled to Washington to sign the agreement, but what happened in front of the cameras marked the inglorious end of the meeting.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance reprimanded Zelensky, telling him he should thank the US for its support and not ask for additional aid in front of the US media. “You’re gambling with World War III,” Trump told him.
U.S. officials have been talking to officials in Kiev in recent days about signing the minerals deal despite Friday's explosion and have urged Zelensky's advisers to persuade the Ukrainian president to publicly apologize to Trump, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. On Tuesday, Zelensky tweeted that Ukraine was ready to sign the deal and called the Oval Office meeting "regrettable."