President Donald Trump’s claim that the potential “trillion-dollar deal” he is on the cusp of signing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would offer the US easy access to a bonanza of rare earth minerals is at odds with the widespread assessment of current and former US officials who say there’s little actual evidence of great rare earth and other mineral wealth in Ukraine and much of what does exist will be difficult,

Ukraine said on Wednesday it was set to approve a framework minerals deal with the United States but that its success would depend on talks with President Donald Trump. The deal, under which Kyiv would hand some revenue from its mineral resources to a fund jointly controlled by the U.

But Ukraine appears to have steered away from America’s first brazen, extractive demands into something that is closer to a joint investment venture. The deal looks to be a good way short of the $500bn “payback” that Mr Trump had demanded from Ukraine,