Trump's Fight for Rare Earths and Critical Minerals
Updated version of the essay first published in German in the column 'Understanding America' in the daily newspaper "Koelner Stadtanzeiger" on April 7, 2025.
At present hardly a day goes by without new and often rather chaotic measures being announced by the Trump administration. Ever more drastic import tariffs are imposed, reversed and re-imposed. Increasingly strict immigration regulations are issued and executed. More and more government agencies are simply being abolished or significantly reduced, not least those dealing with climate, health and global policy issues. However, a counter-movement is gradually emerging. Even in the Republican-dominated Senate and in some individual states governed by Republicans, there is growing discontent with Trump's policies. The dramatic decline of the stock market, the rather unexpected sell-off of US Treasury bonds and the talk about a looming recession in the U.S. has also opened the eyes of many who once supported Trump.
Nevertheless, there are some of Trump's political measures that make some sense, even if Trump often behaves like the proverbial bull in a China shop when it comes to their practical implementation. Trump is trying hard to give the US greater access to the world's limited supplies of critical minerals and rare earths. He has loudly proclaimed that he wants to make the US a mineral superpower and that in five to 10 years his country will dominate the global production and refining of these crucially important raw materials.
Rare earths consist of a total of 17 metallic elements and are essential for the manufacture of many modern technology and medical devices. Without rare earths, smartphones, electric batteries and engines, LEDs, wind turbines, plasma screens, drones and many other products cannot be manufactured. Almost every country in the world has a slightly different list of critical minerals that are also necessary for the production of state-of-the-art technology and energy and military products. Washington lists 50 critical minerals, including aluminum, germanium, lithium, magnesium, nickel, tungsten, chromium, cobalt, rhodium and others. The U.S. is dependent on importing more than 30 of these critical minerals from abroad and only less than a handful are abundant within the U.S. itself.
China dominance of rare earths and critical minerals
Most of the rare earths are located in China and the U.S. sources 70 percent of its rare earths from China. China also refines almost 90 percent of the world's rare earths, i.e. it purifies these raw materials which are mostly extracted from the earth's crust, thus making it possible to use the minerals for modern production needs. Cesium, for example, which is essential for many computer functions, for the GPS navigation system and for the production of photocells, is only extracted in three mines in the world and all three are owned by China. While Beijing has expanded its global dominance in the capital-intensive critical mineral mining industry over many decades and has had the foresight to establish well-functioning global supply chains, this has been completely neglected in the western world for reasons of money and environmental protection. While around a third of global lithium production came from the USA in 1995, this had shrunk to one percent by 2021. In contrast, Beijing increased its lithium production capacity sevenfold between 2013 and 2020 alone.
This situation has placed the USA, and many other western countries, in a dangerous position of dependency. In the event of a military conflict over Taiwan, Beijing would certainly not hesitate to abruptly stop exporting rare earths to the U.S. Already in February and March 2025, when Trump imposed a twenty percent tariff on Chinese exports to the U.S., Beijing immediately imposed export controls on 25 rare earths. An even stronger reaction can be expected now and in the near future after Trump has levied extraordinarily high export tariffs on products from China, bringing the total to a staggering 145 per cent though it is much lower for some products.
Washington’s dependency on importing rare earths and critical minerals
Both the Biden administration and President Trump during his first term in office tried to do something about the USA's critical dependence on minerals without much success. Now Trump is becoming increasingly desperate to tackle the problem. He has created a National Energy Dominance Council, led by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and immediately after taking office, Trump issued two executive orders declaring a dramatic emergency on energy and critical minerals for national security reasons to encourage the protracted and capital-intensive extraction of these commodities. On March 20 he issued another presidential executive order to significantly boost American mineral production.
Just how dramatically Trump sees the situation is also made clear by the fact that he is ignoring the protests of over 40 nations and the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a Kingston, Jamaica, based UN sub-organization to which 167 nations and the EU belong. He wants to grant a private company - The Metals Company - permission to start mining valuable minerals under the more than two miles deep sea bed of the Pacific Ocean. As these are international waters, the Trump administration claims, the objections of the International Seabed Authority to the exploitation of the rocks on the deep sea bed, which are rich in nickel, copper, zinc and cobalt, has no validity.
Trump’s combative critical minerals’ foreign policy
Trump's combative foreign policy has a lot to do with his focus on critical minerals and rare earths. After China Canada is the country with the world's richest deposits of these important raw materials. This is likely the main reason why Trump keeps mentioning that he wants to make Canada the 51st state of the USA. Trump also keeps repeating his interest in annexing Greenland for strategic and economic reasons. Greenland also has very rich deposits of rare earths and 25 of the world's most important critical minerals can be found in the autonomous territory. The USA is currently even negotiating a minerals agreement with Congo, despite the country having been torn apart by armed conflict. Congo is the world's largest producer of cobalt and also possesses many other critical minerals.
One of the main reasons why Trump has not yet completely abandoned Ukraine and has resumed military aid to the country and the sharing of intelligence, which had been suspended after his Oval Office row with President Zelenskyy in early March, is due to Ukraine’s raw materials. Trump still wants to conclude a comprehensive and for the U.S. financially highly advantageous critical minerals’ agreement with Kyiv. After all, Ukraine possesses five percent of all critical minerals in the world, including large quantities of lithium, graphite and also beryllium and uranium, which are essential for the production of nuclear weapons and reactors.
From a real-political point of view Trump's assertive minerals and rare earths policy makes perfect sense, but he is not doing his country any favors with his hawkish and aggressive approach. On the contrary. This is highly counterproductive for America’s standing in the world and for keeping in with the countries which only a few months ago were still among Washington’s closest friends and allies.
