For many years, while China strategically secured minerals from around the world, the United States rarely used foreign policy to obtain the minerals it needs. That has finally changed — and dramatically so. Within the first 40 days of President Trump’s term, he has expressed interest in acquiring Greenland for its rare earths; annexing Canada, with its vast reserves of uranium and copper; and securing control over Ukraine’s rare earths and titanium in exchange for continued U.S. support.
After the blowup between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday in the Oval Office, the fate of the Ukraine minerals deal is uncertain. Mr. Zelensky said he is still “ready” to sign a deal; on Monday, Mr. Trump said he did not believe the deal was dead.
Whether the Ukraine deal is eventually signed or not, incorporating minerals into foreign policy is crucial for U.S. national security. However, without dedicating government investment and diplomatic resources — as China has done — this initiative remains a hollow effort and may fail to deliver any results.
With less than 2 percent of the world’s reserves of rare earths, graphite, cobalt and nickel, the United States must work closely with resource-rich nations to make sure American companies can get the minerals they need to build, among other things, phones, batteries for electric vehicles and semiconductors. China has similar challenges and has made minerals diplomacy central to its foreign policy. Despite accounting for only 1 percent to 10 percent of global lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper production, China imports enough to process more than 65 percent of some of these metals and 90 percent of rare earths. This level of control is the outcome of years of strategic industrial planning and foreign policy efforts by Beijing.
Mr. Trump appears to be taking a page from China’s playbook of active minerals diplomacy. The draft agreement with Ukraine would reportedly create a fund controlled by the United States and Ukraine to receive future revenue from Ukraine’s natural resources. But if it is signed, it is not clear whether such an agreement will actually enhance U.S. mineral security. In fact, it will be decades before we see the impact of this agreement, if at all.
The United States has seemingly minimal knowledge of Ukraine’s underground resources. There is no modern mapping of the country’s rare earth deposits; the most recent surveys are believed to have been conducted 30 to 60 years ago by what was then the Soviet Union. Without up-to-date geological data, it is impossible to determine whether these resources are economically viable for extraction. If the ore grade is too low, the deposits are too small or the byproducts aren’t valuable enough, private companies are unlikely to invest the $500 million to $1 billion needed to develop a mine and separation plant.
Moreover, under the draft agreement, Ukraine would be required to pay a percentage of proceeds from newly developed mineral assets into a reconstruction investment fund with joint U.S. and Ukraine ownership; existing mineral, oil and gas operations are to remain exempt. Given that the average time to develop a mine from resource discovery to production is approximately 18 years, it will take at least that long — four more U.S. presidential election cycles — before the United States can begin sourcing minerals from Ukraine.
There are ways to make minerals diplomacy more effective, but it will require a willingness by the U.S. government not just to strike deals but also to spend and invest, over a long period, in countries that have the mineral resources we need. That may be a tough sell at a time of fiscal austerity and budget cuts to the federal government. But China did not build the significant competitive advantage it holds in electric vehicle manufacturing by reducing spending. One analysis found that between 2009 and 2023, the Chinese government allocated at least $230.9 billion in subsidies to help develop the nascent industry. The fruits of that effort are apparent in the domination of BYD’s electric vehicles worldwide.
So how should the American government spend the resources needed to build a competitive minerals diplomacy strategy?
First, the United States should increase the capacity of the U.S. Geological Survey to conduct geological mapping and reduce exploration risks in key regions. Many resource-rich countries remain unmapped or reliant on outdated surveys. The U.S. Geological Survey could also place their attachés in embassies, to work alongside geological surveys and mining ministries in host countries, promoting resource development strategies that are favorable to Western investors.
Second, the United States needs to help build roads, bridges and other infrastructure in mineral-rich places. Mining is one of the most energy-intensive sectors in the world. Globally, it accounts for 38 percent of industrial energy use. One of the challenges with mining in Ukraine, for example, is the fact that missile and drone strikes have damaged about half of that country’s power substations. To ease the way for Western mining companies in Ukraine, the United States should increase funding to institutions like the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, which can help rebuild some of those assets.
Any government-to-government cooperation agreement is useful only if it stimulates investment by private mining companies, which develop those minerals into a form that companies like Apple and Tesla can use. But the world’s most resource-rich nations, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, are not easy places for businesses to operate. The U.S. government can help mitigate those risks by supporting mining project negotiations and dispute resolution, and providing financing at below-market rates and political risk insurance.
China has long aligned its infrastructure investments to mineral investments. The 2007 Sino-Congolais des Mines agreement is a key example of a resource-for-infrastructure deal. Under this arrangement, Chinese companies gained access to cobalt, copper and other minerals in exchange for the development of infrastructure, such as roads and hospitals. The Chinese consortium pledged more than $6.5 billion for infrastructure projects, securing mining rights to deposits near Kolwezi in the southeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which were estimated to be worth $93 billion. As a result, China now owns or has stakes in 15 of Congo’s biggest copper and cobalt mines.
The United States needs to come up with a blueprint for how minerals diplomacy can play out in other parts of the world, not just Ukraine. The Democratic Republic of Congo recently proposed that it could offer the United States and Europe access to its mineral reserves in return for military assistance, amid its ongoing conflict with neighboring Rwanda. Such an agreement is well worth considering and, if it is pursued, should be backed up with real investment.
Mining is a long and costly process. If America is to be a global leader in the minerals it needs for national, economic and energy security, it will have to go beyond signing agreements. In Ukraine and elsewhere, strategic diplomacy and substantive investment will determine whether such deals actually deliver the mineral security the United States is looking for.
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