Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that an economic deal with Ukraine is not currently on the table after a heated exchange between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Feb. 28.
“President Trump’s idea for this economic arrangement was to further intertwine the American people and Ukrainian people and show no daylight,” Bessent told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan on March 2. “To show the Russian leadership that there was no daylight, and President Zelenskyy came into the Oval Office and tried to relitigate in front of the world the deal.”
The Feb. 28 meeting on the U.S.–Ukraine minerals agreement—which would see U.S. investment go into Ukraine to jointly develop the nation’s vast rare earth minerals resources and allow the United States access to $500 billion worth of deposits—escalated into a public argument between the two sides….