Since U.S. President Donald Trump reentered workplace, analysts have struggled to make sense of his administration’s erratic overseas coverage. However as FP’s Christina Lu writes, a lot of his agenda betrays one main via line: “potential entry to China-free provide chains for crucial minerals.”
Essential minerals, which embrace lithium and rare-earth parts, underpin the protection and vitality sectors. They’re important to applied sciences from chips to F-35 fighter jets—and presently, the US 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 overseas coverage. However as FP’s Christina Lu writes, a lot of his agenda betrays one main via line: “potential entry to China-free provide chains for crucial minerals.”
Essential minerals, which embrace lithium and rare-earth parts, underpin the protection and vitality sectors. They’re important to applied sciences from chips to F-35 fighter jets—and presently, the US is deeply reliant on China for these sources.
However can the Trump administration’s techniques really loosen China’s chokehold on crucial mineral provide chains? And the way a lot would stockpiling these sources even bolster U.S. nationwide safety? The essays and reporting under minimize via the noise and provide 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 by way of Getty Pictures
Trump’s Chaotic Agenda Has a Essential By way of Line
What do Greenland, Canada, and Ukraine have in widespread? Essential minerals, FP’s Christina Lu writes.
A vial full of uncommon earths after they had been extracted from digital waste on the Geological and Mining Analysis Workplace in Orleans, France, on June 22, 2021.Christophe Archambault/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Wealthy International locations Stockpiling Essential Minerals Is Not a Plan
The worldwide race for sources should not develop 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 by way of Getty Picture
Ukraine’s Minerals Received’t Resolve 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 Pictures
How Sturdy Is China’s Uncommon-Earth Card?
Washington is making huge 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 town of Kolwezi within the southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, on June 20, 2023.Emmet Livingstone/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
What the Essential Minerals Race Means for Ladies
They’re essential to the success of mining but disproportionately shoulder its destructive penalties, Jessica Anania writes.
