While the nation was focused on an ongoing personal tragedy and the Super Bowl, representatives of 54 nations met last Wednesday in Washington, DC, at the request of Secretary of State Marco Rubio to plot out a pathway to mutual independence from the Chinese stranglehold on access to critical minerals and rare earths.
The inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial was aimed at strengthening global supply chains for minerals essential for advanced technologies, defense, AI, robotics, batteries, and autonomous devices. Attendees ran the gamut from India and Japan to the European Commission to Qatar and the UAE, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Kazakhstan, Thailand and the Philippines, and Israel and Jordan.
One focus was on the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE), now led by South Korea, and Project Vault, under which the U.S. will create a Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve as a public-private partnership designed to store essential raw materials at facilities across the nation. Project Vault is backed by a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and $2 billion in private capital.
Secretary Rubio acknowledged that “As we embraced what was new and glamorous, we outsourced what seemed old and unfashionable … and one day we realized we had outsourced our economic security and our very future. We were at the mercy of whoever controlled the supply chains for these minerals.” Whover, of course, refers to the Peoples Republic of China.
Vice President JD Vance reminded 43 foreign ministers that, “As much as we talk about the modern economy, the digital economy, the high-tech economy … as much as data centers and technology and all of these incredible things that we’re all working on matter, fundamentally you still have an economy that runs on real things. And there is no realer thing than oil … and … critical minerals.”
Vance acknowledged that the international market for critical minerals has failed to create domestic markets or dignified jobs and is thus failing to keep nations safe. With attending nations representing close to two-thirds of global GDP, there is certainly the capacity to make ourselves more independent, more self-reliant – “and that’s what we should be doing.”
Vance lamented that across Europe and North America dozens of mining and processing initiatives have been suspended or completely abandoned because sustained price weakness made financing impossible. Even advanced economies with deep capital markets are finding their projects cannot clear costs.
Bad as it is in the developed world, only a tiny fraction of global mining investment is reaching the point of actual projects in resource-rich developing economies. Capital infusions require that investors are confident that markets will remain stable long enough to justify the long-term commitments – and that confidence has been lacking.
We have, Vance added, created a market distorted beyond recognition – one that punishes strategic investment, punishes diversification, and punishes long-term planning. The Critical Minerals Ministerial is aimed at reversing those trends toward rewarding, rather than punishing, providing the materials for the technologies of today and tomorrow.
Vance singled out the Biden Administration for its inactivity. “They never sat down and tried to understand what are the critical deficiencies in world supply chains.” By contrast, the Trump Administration has mobilized public financing tools at an unprecedented scale, providing up to $100 billion in lending authority for critical minerals to the Office of Strategic Capital.
To reverse the sad reality that the U.S. had not built a primary smelter since 1980, the Trump team has “overturned old orthodoxies and taken direct stakes in high-value mining and processing companies.” Just last month two new smelters were announced, one of which is already fully funded, said Vance.
All that said, the reason for the Ministerial is to align trade policy, development finance, and diplomatic engagement towards a shared strategic objective, said Vance. That objective is to diversify global supply in the critical minerals market while strengthening the partner countries who help all of us in this shared effort.
The Trump Administration formally proposed a concrete partnership mechanism to return the global critical minerals market to a healthier, more competitive state – a preferential trade zone for critical minerals, protected from external disruptions through enforceable price floors, with referenced prices at each stage of production that reflect real-world fair-market value.
Rubio noted that last October the U.S. secured over $10 billion in critical mineral agreements across five countries. In December, stakeholders from around the world attended the PAX Silica Summit to launch a partnership dedicated to building a resilient silicone supply chain.
Iwao Horii, Japan’s minister for foreign affairs, urged nations to work together to prevent supply chain disruptions and lauded the launch of FORGE as an important vehicle for focusing on supply chain diversification. He promised Japan’s unwavering support on every aspect of demand and supply, mining and refining, upstream and downstream.
David Copley from the National Security Council lamented the fact that onerous permitting and litigation frameworks have resulted in a 29-year timeframe for opening a new U.S. mine. Worse, the U.S. is graduating only 200 to 250 mining engineers annually. The Trump Administration no longer views mining as a “dirty old-world industry,” said Copley.
To reverse that trend, the U.S. today is investing in mining-specific projects, including equity investing through public-private minerals investment funds to funnel hundreds of billions of capital into the long-dormant mining sector. Project Vault builds on last year’s $2 billion allocation for a national defense critical minerals stockpile – the first in U.S. history for the civilian economy.
A third goal is to protect U.S. mines from strategic dumping and overproduction that leaves commodity prices low and reduces the value of assets and tax receipts while also harming consuming nations. That’s the genius of the preferential trade zone.
Finally, the U.S. is rewriting regulations that have stymied mining projects, including streamlining environmental impact statements so they can be completed within 30 days.
By highlighting the return of mining and processing to the forefront of U.S. policy, Vance and Rubio sought to enlist global cooperation in building an international coalition to wean the rest of the world from Chinese hegemony in the critical minerals and rare earths space.
It remains to be seen just how successful this long-overdue effort will be – but the alternative (doing nothing) is not a genuine option.
Doing something, anything strategic is most unusual for DC. It’s good to see critical thinking for a change.
Now we have a strategic Ministerial of Lamenting. I keep my fingers crossed that it does not end there.
Do I understand the problem correctly?: China has taken control of as much production of critical minerals and rare earths as it can, and has sought to put the rest out of business by undercutting them on price. The end result is that China controls all production and can now put the whole western world out of action at a single stroke, ie, by simply denying supply.
Is it reasonable to deduce from that, that all western leaders except Donald Trump (and maybe one or two others with limited influence) have either been asleep at the wheel or actively working on subjecting their countries to Chinese communist control?
Pretty much it. Basically the same as when the EU decided it would be a good idea to become dependent on Russian Gas.
Well, W said when he met Putin, “I looked into his eyes and I knew I could trust him”.
” a primary smelter since ” “all western leaders”
When younger, I visited various industrial facilities. The first being a glass bottle factory where my dad worked. Chocolate – yes. Rolled steel – yes. Fabric/clothing – yes. Wine – yes. I even visited a deep mine and smelter in northern Idaho. Dams, including Grand Coulee last summer. I should mention I grew up in coal and oil country – western Pennsylvania.
It would be a good experience for our leaders if they toured the sorts of places I have – not just for a photo-op at the front gate.
Politicians should not be allowed to become politicians unless they’ve had proper jobs for at least 10 years.
We’re being ruled by idiots straight out of political school where they are taught how to rule the world by left wing professors.
While we’re at it, we need to ban the party system, so politicians get elected on their own merit.
Bingo! yes, they need to have real world experience. George Washington was very much against the party system. Some might try logging for a few years. That’ll make a man…er…uh.. or woman out of them.
Like this lumberjack …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts
You can’t ban parties without getting rid of parts of the 1st amendment. Free assembly and all that.
However we can get rid of many of the advantages that politicians have built into the law that benefit Republicans and Democrats at the expense of all other parties.
For example, the Republican and Democrat candidates are automatically on the ballot. All other parties have to get 10’s of thousands of signatures before they can get on the ballot.
Doubtless, Schumer is trying to figure out a way to squelch this program or alternately convince everybody it was his or the Democrats idea.
The fact that US and Europe fell back so far behind in terms of rare earth
can be best desribed as preemptive sabotage, as everybody knew back then about the importance of rare earths/ critical minerals and what may happen if a single country gets the green light to monopolize it with no competition or resistance.
The problem now is to balance things out while reversing the trend without causing too much chaos,
as the 12 billion vault is a drop in the bucket on the one hand(barely 15% of the tiny annual silver market) on the other hand it would drive prizes massively up if too much money enters these relativity small markets.
People don’t realize that relying on outsourcing to increase profit includes your future security and prosperity. It’s a deal with the devil.
On the other hand, vertically integrated companies was the big thing back in the 1800’s and many of the same groups who are today critical of outsourcing, were demanding that the government break up these companies because they were “too big”.
Ma Bell comes to mind.
Sounds good to me.
but we can reliably see into the future now?
of course, so the US can get everybody else to do things the US can’t or won’t do for itself. To the advantage of the US, of course, in the guise of democracy and freedom.
All the US seems to be capable of doing at the moment, is threatening to blow people up if they don’t do as they’re told (accompanied by actual blowings up, of people in small boats who can’t fight back, of course), and borrowing ever-increasing amounts of money to make things that go bang!
From what little I know, some sectors of America’s workforce are heavily dependent on undocumented migrants – about 8,500,000 of them. I wonder if, in a little while, the US administration might decide that spending a lot of borrowed money removing 8,500,000 workers generally supporting the “base of the pyramid” was a bit of a mistake?
Nobody can see into the future, but I don’t have any reason to believe that the US is suddenly going to become a competitive industrial powerhouse again. Complaining that you have only just realized that you have been outsmarted by a competitor, so you are going to try to get the rest of the world to pay you for your foolishness, is the hallmark of a egotistical cretin with a very large gun.
President Harry S Truman said “If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen”.
And so the game goes on.
America is already a competitive industrial powerhouse.
Joseph, I assume you are being sarcastic, in view of US exports (November 2025) –
and
Competitive industrial powerhouse? Ranks 9 out of 193 on GDP per capita. MAGA is a slogan based on fact.
Nobody can see into the future, yet the Climate Alarmists have been screaming doom due to CO2 for the past half century (or longer) and we are silenced if we do not agree with each and every prognotstication.
Undocumented migrants. Mostly those are illegal aliens according to the definitions in the INA.
“From, what little I know”
Finally an accurate and honest statement.
Harry S. Truman had many noteworthy, memorable quotes.
“The buck stops here.”
Regardless of opinions, and opinions vary, on who and why and whatever created the current situation, President Trump is fulfilling his responsibility of addressing and pursuing corrective actions.
You are not being told you have to agree with all of the President’s policies, decisions, methods, etc. Be advised that a blanket disapproval of everything is the foundation for a TDS accusation.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinions. The Constitution right to free speech means that, even though I disagree with you, I will defend to the death your right to prove yourself an idiot.
And so, your flame war game goes on.
To all the good people posting here, I ardently apologize for breaking the rule, “Don’t feed the trolls.”
There was a time when private people, then later exploration and mining companies did the professional work of not only finding and developing mineral resources but also forecasting forward needs and improving ways to handle waste products. The whole minerals cycle operated without the helpful hand of governments, who were mostly required to manage only who was given license to operate on an area.
Over a couple of decades, say 1970-1990 here in Australia, government interventions became so numerous that for many companies, the business of fighting off silly government ideas and imposts became one of the larger time-consuming daily functions. It was so bad that about 1990, for example, I was forced by economic pressure to spend little time on my geochemical science duties and most time fighting government acts and regulations – plus the myriad pressure groups, special pleaders, money grubbers, typically NGOs with tax concessions for charity labels.
It is pleasing that US administrators have finally started action to remove the nooses from the necks on a path to more corporate freedom again. There is much more to do.
Take this sentence copied from the news above “Finally, the U.S. is rewriting regulations that have stymied mining projects, including streamlining environmental impact statements so they can be completed within 30 days”.
When my group was doing best, there were no environmental impact statements. They came later. Miners were regarded as responsible. They were assumed to know what was proper and what was not. We policed those few dogs who went rogue. We did environmental repair when we could afford it, not when some distant bureaucrat generalized that we needed to be told how much money to spend when.
The sentence above best serves the people when it evolves to “Finally, the U.S. is abolishing the fake concept of environmental impact statements.”
The E.I.S. is a horrible concept. It assumes guilt for damage to the environment before the presumed offender has had a chance to demonstrate not only inherent good faith, but also capacity to operate with funds and expertise sufficient to protect the environment.
In a few more years, the next step is an open admission by the U.S. government that the concept of sanctity of the environment, with protection at the top of the line of corporate responsibility, will no longer exist. “The Environment” is not a concept that needs high rank. It is not a developing concept – one E.I.S reads much like another. Very few if any new concepts have happened in the last decade to change environment protection from a dreary “more of the same” each year. The E.I.S. is Xerox-ready, has been for many years, so it needs no elevated status as if it was newly-emergent.
The harm done by idealistic but unreal green pressure groups has been deep. Its bad features are taught in schools as good features, the way of the future. That is a sham. It is green advertising, not proper, colourless proper science. Geoff S
The US EPA has recently rescinded the Endangerment Finding (EF) of 2009 for CO2. Has there been any mention of this in any Australian newspaper? If Premier Anthony A. and the Canberra Climate Cartel learned of rescission of the EF, would they abandon their draconian climate agenda and their goal of Net Zero by 2050?
For a recent Adelaide temperature check, I went to:
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/adelaide/average-temperature-by-year. The Tmax and Tmin temperature data from 1887 to 2025 is displayed in long table. In 2025 Tave was 17.4° C, a 0.5° C increase of the 1999 Tave of 16.9° C.
Shown in the chart (See below) is plot of a the annual mean temperatures in Adelaide from 1857 to 1999. In 1999 Tave was 16.7° C. The chart was obtained from the late John L. Daly’s website “Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at http://www.john-daly.com. In 1857 the concentration of CO2 in air was ca. 280 ppmv (0.55 g CO2/cu. m. of air) and by 2025 it had increased to ca. 426 ppmv (0.84 g CO2/cu. m. of air), but the increase in the concentration of CO2 had little effect on air temperature in this port city.
The challenge is how can this type of empirical data be used to convince the politicians and the radical environmental NGO’s that CO2 produced by the use of fossil fuels does not cause global warming and climate change because there is little of it in the air
NB: If you click on the chart it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to contract the chart and return to Comments.
The same problems as have happened in forestry in the US. Do a 10 acre thinning in a forest and first write a 50 page impact study. It was about 3 pages when I started half a century ago. Forestry is now better but not because of the bureaucracy- because foresters are now better educated and trained. We have no more need of those “burros”. I tell them that and they don’t seem to appreciate it. 🙂