US President Donald Trump says Ukraine “could forget about” joining the NATO military alliance as he prepares to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday.

Trump also said he hopes to soon speak face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of reaching an agreement to end the war in Ukraine that began when Moscow invaded in February 2022.

Trump, speaking at the start of his administration’s first cabinet meeting, was clear that both countries would need to make concessions but declined to go into details.

Zelenskyy will visit the White House on Friday to sign a critical minerals deal.

Earlier, the Ukrainian leader revealed that the framework of an economic deal with the US was ready, but it did not yet offer US security guarantees that Kyiv views as vital for its war against the Russian invasion.

The full agreement could hinge on the Washington talks on Friday, Zelenskyy said during a news conference in Kyiv.

The agreed-upon framework is a preliminary step toward a comprehensive package that will be subject to ratification by the Ukrainian parliament, Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine needs to know first where the US stands on its continued military support, Zelenskyy said.

He said he expects to have a wide-ranging conversation with Trump during his visit to Washington.

The economic agreement “may be part of future security guarantees, but I want to understand the broader vision. What awaits Ukraine?” Zelenskyy said.

Since returning to office last month, Trump let Ukraine know that he wanted something in return for tens of billions of dollars in US help fending off the Russian forces that launched a full-scale invasion just over three years ago on February 24, 2022.

The White House has applied heavy pressure on Kyiv to grant American access to its vast reserves of minerals that are used in the aerospace, defence and nuclear industries.

Zelenskyy balked at initial US offers, arguing they did not contain adequate security assurances for Ukraine and that the proposed price tag of $US500 billion ($790 billion) would saddle generations of Ukrainians with debt.

But Kyiv is also keen to use the investments as a way of locking the US into Ukraine’s fate.

The latest version of the agreement, seen by The Associated Press, says that the US “supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace” but does not spell out any US commitment to provide them.