President-elect Donald Trump’s pre-emptive tariff threat several weeks ago against the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, among others) who want to usurp the U.S. dollar as the global currency was a prescient and powerful move. But as night follows day, a BRICS leader – China – immediately counter-punched: denying U.S. access to several critical minerals that America needs for national defense but now largely imports from BRICS countries.
On New Year’s Day, China upped the ante. It added 28 U.S. defense industry companies to its export control list, which restricts the export to these companies of ‘dual use’ materials that have both commercial and defense uses.
What does this mean? If the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses this to justify banning the export of components that contain critical materials such as rare earth permanent magnets – which I believe they will do – then the long-feared critical minerals war has begun. This was predicted on the pages of FoxNews.com in early 2023.
China launched these attacks ostensibly in response to actions taken by the Biden administration. But China knows that throwing a critical minerals hook to the U.S. military serves several strategic goals that benefit both China and the BRICS cabal:
It directly weakens U.S. national security without having to fire a shot.
It is a strong response to U.S. export restrictions without engaging in a lose-lose fight against America’s tariff master.
It should increase revenue to BRICs-based minerals producers, weaken global competitors, and potentially exacerbate inflationary pressures in the U.S.
It enables China and its BRICs allies to get into the ring with an opponent – the U.S. – that has in recent decades tied both hands behind its back in terms of critical minerals production.
But the BRICS nations may have made a serious miscalculation: they underestimate America’s ability to unleash a new era of ‘Mine, Baby, Mine’ under Trump. Domestic critical minerals mining in the U.S. – including in much-talked-about jurisdictions such as Greenland – is key to removing the dangerous leverage that BRICS nations hold over our economic and national security.
BRICS starts with a huge advantage over the U.S. They all have rich mineral resources and the will to extract their value to their own economic, military and geopolitical advantage. Collectively, they control or heavily influence global supply chains for rare earths, niobium, scandium, titanium metal, vanadium, nickel, antimony, cobalt, lithium, graphite, gallium, platinum and many others. The breadth and depth of this geopolitical power sends shivers down the spine of any serious U.S. military planner.
For example, government-controlled entities in China and Russia manipulate critical minerals commodity pricing to grab market share. They surreptitiously flow their molecules through third parties to hide provenance and evade tariffs. They invest orders of magnitude more than the U.S. in minerals research, development and specialized workforce training, further cementing their huge competitive advantage.
BRICS nations have even been reliably accused of fueling anti-mining sentiment in the U.S. by funneling money to global anti-mining activists that work to tie up U.S. mining projects in red tape and endless litigation.
China provides the primary fulcrum of BRICS’ mineral leverage. Companies controlled by the CCP have helped China become the top producer and/or refiner of more than half of the 50 minerals the U.S. government has determined are critical. What’s more, the CCP is clearly willing to weaponize this advantage, as the latest moves to restrict U.S. access to certain critical minerals demonstrate.
Make no mistake, restrictions on critical minerals exports to the U.S. will likely grow. At some point, such bans – especially if extended to the magnetic rare earth elements, as I believe are now inevitable – mean that newly built F-35s can’t fly, smart bombs turn dumb, advanced submarines can’t be built, and soldiers lose future supplies of night-vision goggles.
How can the incoming Trump administration counter the BRICS minerals threat? In the interest of transparency, let me note that I am a 40+ year veteran of the mining industry and my team and I are today developing an advanced critical minerals project in Nebraska. I have a personal interest in seeing America ramp up mineral development. But I offer the following suggestions on behalf of the industry and, more important, U.S. national security.
Provide low-interest loans to new mines that have already obtained all necessary federal, state, and local permits and which have earned strong buy-in from local communities.
Focus on polymetallic mines that can produce multiple critical minerals from a single orebody and can also expand production by recycling post-consumer waste streams, such as rare earth permanent magnets.
Expand the authority of the U.S. Department of Defense, through its Office of Strategic Capital and Title III programs, to become a major funding source for new mines. Also, enable the National Defense Stockpile to build a much larger store of a defense-critical minerals and to enter into forward purchase agreements with U.S. mines not yet in production.
Encourage the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) to accelerate debt financing of domestic critical minerals projects. To its credit, EXIM has already launched a first-in-its-history effort to finance domestic U.S. projects. What’s more, EXIM’s loan revenue has historically covered its operating costs and allowed it to generate net government revenues. Few government agencies deliver such value.
Waive National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for defense critical minerals projects that are not otherwise subject to NEPA but for the receipt of federal funding.
Companies controlled by the CCP have helped China become the top producer and/or refiner of more than half of the 50 minerals the U.S. government has determined are critical. What’s more, the CCP is clearly willing to weaponize this advantage, as the latest moves to restrict U.S. access to certain critical minerals demonstrate.
Legislate reasonable limits on litigation timelines. It now takes an average of 29 years to get a mine online in the U.S. Only Zambia is worse.
Streamline federal permitting processes. The first Trump administration made excellent progress on this, but much of that was reversed by follow-on executive orders. Permitting reform via changes to U.S. statutes is a must.
The U.S. does mining and mineral processing more efficiently and with greater environmental care than any nation. Let’s restore and unleash the American entrepreneurial spirit and ‘Mine, Baby, Mine’ our way to a more prosperous and secure future.