Since U.S. President Donald Trump reentered workplace, analysts have struggled to make sense of his administration’s erratic international coverage. However as FP’s Christina Lu writes, a lot of his agenda betrays one main by way of line: “potential entry to China-free provide chains for vital minerals.”
Important minerals, which embrace lithium and rare-earth components, underpin the protection and vitality sectors. They’re important to applied sciences from chips to F-35 fighter jets—and at the moment, the USA is deeply reliant on China for these sources.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump reentered workplace, analysts have struggled to make sense of his administration’s erratic international coverage. However as FP’s Christina Lu writes, a lot of his agenda betrays one main by way of line: “potential entry to China-free provide chains for vital minerals.”
Important minerals, which embrace lithium and rare-earth components, underpin the protection and vitality sectors. They’re important to applied sciences from chips to F-35 fighter jets—and at the moment, the USA is deeply reliant on China for these sources.
However can the Trump administration’s techniques truly loosen China’s chokehold on vital mineral provide chains? And the way a lot would stockpiling these sources even bolster U.S. nationwide safety? The essays and reporting under lower by way of the noise and supply actual perception into the race for these highly effective supplies.
A employee mans a furnace in the course of the nickel-smelting course of in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province on March 30, 2019. Bannu Mazandra/AFP through Getty Photos
Trump’s Chaotic Agenda Has a Important By way of Line
What do Greenland, Canada, and Ukraine have in widespread? Important minerals, FP’s Christina Lu writes.
A vial crammed with uncommon earths after they have been extracted from digital waste on the Geological and Mining Analysis Workplace in Orleans, France, on June 22, 2021.Christophe Archambault/AFP through Getty Photos
Wealthy Nations Stockpiling Important Minerals Is Not a Plan
The worldwide race for sources should not turn into one other international danger, Patrick Schröder writes.
Employees function equipment at an open-pit titanium mine within the Zhytomyr area of Ukraine on Feb. 28. Roman Pilepey/AFP through Getty Picture
Ukraine’s Minerals Received’t Remedy U.S. Provide Chain Issues
Market realities will stymie Trump’s speaking factors, Joshua Busby, Emily J. Holland, and Morgan D. Bazilian write.
U.S. President Donald Trump takes half in a welcoming ceremony with Chinese language President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017.Thomas Peter/Getty Photos
How Robust Is China’s Uncommon-Earth Card?
Washington is making massive strikes, however Beijing has a strong hand, FP’s Christina Lu writes.
A lady demonstrates an XRF gun used to find out the purity of ore in a buying and selling depot within the artisanal copper-cobalt mine of Kamilombe, close to the town of Kolwezi within the southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, on June 20, 2023.Emmet Livingstone/AFP through Getty Photos
What the Important Minerals Race Means for Ladies
They’re essential to the success of mining but disproportionately shoulder its unfavourable penalties, Jessica Anania writes.
