President Donald Trump spent most of 2025 hacking away at massive components of the federal authorities. His administration fired, purchased out, or in any other case ousted lots of of 1000’s of federal workers. Whole businesses had been gutted. By so many metrics, this 12 months in politics has been outlined extra by what has been lower away than by what’s been added on.
One tiny nook of regulation, nevertheless, has truly grown beneath Trump: the crucial minerals record. Most individuals doubtless hadn’t heard of “crucial minerals” till early this 12 months when the president repeatedly inserted the phrase into his statements, turning the as soon as obscure coverage realm right into a family phrase. In November, the U.S. Geological Survey quietly expanded the record from 50 to 60 gadgets, including copper, silver, uranium, and even metallurgical coal to the record. In mid-December, South Korean metallic processor Korea Zinc introduced that the federal authorities is investing in a new $7.4 billion zinc refinery in Tennessee, during which the Division of Protection will maintain a stake.
However what even is a crucial mineral?
The idea dates again to the primary half of the 20th century, particularly World Battle II, when Congress handed laws geared toward stockpiling supplies very important to the US’ well-being. President Trump established the crucial minerals record in 2018, with the defining standards being that any mineral included be “important to the financial and nationwide safety of the US” and have a provide chain that’s “weak to disruption.” A mineral’s presence on the record can convey a slew of advantages to anybody making an attempt to extract or produce that mineral within the U.S., together with sooner allowing for extraction, tax incentives, or federal funding.
As Grist explored in its current mining situation, crucial minerals are shaping every part from geopolitics to water provides, oceans, and recycling methods. If there may be to be a true clear power transition, these parts are key to it. Metals akin to lithium, cobalt, and nickel type the spine of the batteries that energy electrical automobiles. Silicon is the first element of photo voltaic cells, and uncommon earth magnets assist wind generators perform. To not point out computer systems, microchips, and the multitude of different issues that rely upon crucial minerals.
Presently, the overwhelming majority of crucial minerals utilized in the US come from China — some 80%. In his first time period, Trump tried to extend home manufacturing of those minerals. “America should not stay reliant on international opponents like Russia and China for the crucial minerals wanted to maintain our economic system robust and our nation protected,” he mentioned in 2017. Securing a home provide was additionally a cornerstone of former President Joe Biden’s landmark local weather payments, the bipartisan infrastructure regulation and the Inflation Discount Act.
Now, as Trump has taken workplace once more, he’s made crucial minerals an ever extra central a part of his coverage platform. We’re right here to demystify why this has been a blockbuster 12 months for crucial minerals in the US — and the place the trade might go sooner or later.
A extremely uncommon technique
In March, Trump issued an govt order meant to jump-start crucial mineral manufacturing. “It’s crucial for our nationwide safety that the US take quick motion to facilitate home mineral manufacturing to the utmost doable extent,” he mentioned. The chief order was simply step one in a coordinated effort by the Trump administration to strengthen U.S. management over current provide chains for copper, lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, and dozens of different crucial minerals and to provoke new mines, no matter issues raised by Indigenous peoples. The Trump administration has sought to perform these objectives by each lowering the regulatory obstacles to manufacturing and by investing within the corporations poised to do it.
Since then, Trump has signed agreements with a number of nations to extend investments in crucial minerals and strengthen provide chains. Most just lately, the U.S. made a take care of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which holds greater than 70% of the world’s cobalt. He has pushed federal businesses to make it simpler for mining corporations to use for federal funding, and is inviting corporations to use to pursue seabed mining within the deep waters round American Samoa, close to Guam and the Northern Marianas, across the Prepare dinner Islands, and in worldwide waters south of Hawaii — prompting international outrage and opposition from Native Hawaiian, Samoan, and Chamorro/CHamoru peoples. On the identical time, Trump’s unstable tariff insurance policies have made it more durable for American corporations to supply minerals, and cuts to federal funding have harmed mining workforce coaching packages and analysis into crucial minerals.
Whereas the Biden administration offered grants and loans to varied mining corporations, Trump is deploying a extremely uncommon technique of shopping for stakes in non-public corporations, tying the monetary pursuits of the U.S. authorities with the pursuits and success of those industrial mining operations. Over the previous few months, the Trump administration has spent greater than a billion {dollars} in public cash to purchase minority stakes in non-public corporations like MP Supplies, ReElement Applied sciences, and Vulcan Parts. In Alaska, that technique has concerned investing greater than $35 million in Trilogy Metals to purchase a 10% stake within the firm, which is a main backer of a copper and cobalt mining mission in Alaska.
