US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was treated "rudely" during an official visit to Kyiv, accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of "sleeping" and failing to reach a deal, AFP reports, UNN writes.
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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Zelenskiy in the Ukrainian capital last week to discuss granting Washington access to rare earth minerals in exchange for security support.
"Scott Bessent did go there, and he was treated pretty rudely because they basically told him no," Trump told reporters on board Air Force One.
"And Zelensky was sleeping and unavailable for the meeting," he said.
Bessent "was traveling for many hours on a train, which is a dangerous trip, and we're talking about the Secretary of the Treasury," Trump said.
"He went there to sign the document, and when he arrived, he came back empty-handed. They did not sign the document," he said.
During his speech the day before, Trump mentioned the deal, saying it was "broken.
"The United States has spent $200 billion more than Europe and Europe's money is guaranteed. They get their money back. It's a form of a loan. Nobody knows that. I said why isn't somebody saying we do it the same way and we spent much more money, we have to equalize. While the United States gets nothing back so they get their money back, it's a loan. We just give our money and we had a deal based on rare earth and things but they broke that deal. They broke it two days ago. We had a deal because i said we're spending $350 billion and Europe gets their money back in the form of a loan and we don't," Trump said.