Trump's Critical-Minerals Obsession Is Leading to Some Weird Places

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Source: The New Republic

Trump’s Critical-Minerals Obsession Is Leading to Some Weird Places

Kate Aronoff
Wed, March 26, 2025 at 10:52 AM EDT 10 min read

Alongside tariffs, DOGE, and chaos, Trump’s thirst for “critical minerals” has quickly become one of his young administration’s defining features. Even before taking office, Trump floated the idea of invading Greenland, home to the world’s sixth-largest uranium deposits and second-largest deposits of a subset of minerals known as “rare earths.” Vice President JD Vance is set to visit later this week. Over the last several months, federal officials have pursued deals with Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo promising peace and security in exchange for access to those countries’ mineral deposits. Last week, a sprawling executive order outlined a wonky list of efforts to boost domestic production of everything from lithium to gold. “It is imperative for our national security that the United States take immediate action to facilitate domestic mineral production to the maximum possible extent,” the order states, blaming “overbearing Federal regulation” for undermining homegrown extraction.

Already, two contradictions are clear in the Trump administration’s approach: First, by aggressively intervening in the private sector, Trump’s critical minerals strategy would expand rather than shrink the administrative state, as the White House has pledged to do. Second, it isn’t likely to resolve the considerable problems facing America’s fledgling critical-minerals mining sector—some of which the administration’s other policies are exacerbating.

“Unlike many of these other efforts coming out of the White House, this executive order includes a lot of really granular administrative state actions. It says we don’t just need deregulation. We also need money and institutions,” says Thea Riofrancos, strategic co-director of the Climate and Community Institute and author of the forthcoming book Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism. “DOGE is currently destroying the administrative state.”

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Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-critical-minerals-obsession-leading-145230355.html