Posted on Thursday, February 6, 2025
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by Outside Contributor
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No one is more aware of our mineral vulnerability than China. Again and again, when confronted with U.S. efforts to counter its unfair trade practices, China responds by targeting our Achilles’ heel—our shocking reliance on mineral imports needed for every dimension of our economy and our national security.
In response to a new 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods, Beijing has responded with export controls on several essential materials, including tungsten, tellurium, and molybdenum. Those new restrictions join other recent export controls on antimony, gallium, germanium and graphite.
While all these metals are used in a vast array of technologies, including semiconductors, solar panels and lithium-ion batteries, they are also critically important to the nation’s national security. Antimony, which China has banned altogether from export to the U.S., is used to manufacture 300 different types of munitions. Tungsten projectiles are the feared payload in the HIMARS mobile rocket launcher system proving so effective in Ukraine.
Long-held fears that China could simply cut-off access to essential materials needed to supply our defense sector have become reality. Our mineral insecurity is a crisis, and China has many more levers to pull. According to recent government analysis, the U.S. is import reliant on 40 of 50 critical minerals with China the leading producer of 30.
There is nothing theoretical about the danger this dependence poses. China has already weaponized our mineral insecurity and is actively working to tighten its vise grip on global commodity markets.
As dire as this situation has become, there is new reason for optimism. President Donald Trump made our crippling mineral vulnerability a day-one issue, giving it prominence in his declaration of a “National Energy Emergency.” And in his “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, he directed the government “to establish our position as the leading producer and processor of non-fuel minerals, including rare earth minerals.” These are critically important steps in the right direction to reshore mineral production and build the secure, reliable supply chains our economy and national security demand.
What the Trump administration recognizes is that the U.S. has vast mineral resources and that we can and should be producing far more of the minerals we need. From rare earths to antimony and graphite, we have world-class resources. Our challenge is not geology but rather decades of obstructive policy that pushed mining investment and production overseas.
To achieve Trump’s goal of jumpstarting U.S. mineral production, we now need to use all the tools available to the administration and Congress to tear down self-imposed barriers while also strategically leveling the playing field against foreign anticompetitive trade practices.
Congressional action on permitting reform remains critically important, especially as we consider the capital formation needed to turn resource potential into production. Half measures won’t do. We not only need reform that streamlines duplicative processes and reaffirms and fortifies decades of mining law and precedent but also includes limits on litigation timelines that have trapped responsible projects in endless delays.
Furthermore, we must be clear-eyed about China’s ongoing anticompetitive practices to undermine global mining competition. To push back and declaw China’s minerals weapon, we need to double down on efforts to support U.S. producers and build a policy framework that levels the playing field for domestic production, building on and tailoring existing tax credits and lending and grant authority.
Finally–and most importantly–we need a single point of coordination at the highest levels of the administration to drive our renewed minerals policy and ensure agencies are working in concert towards a unified goal.
Now is the time to decisively turn the tide on the nation’s untenable mineral insecurity and break China’s mineral extortion. America’s industrial resurgence, energy future and national security hang in the balance.
Reprinted with permission from DC Journal by Rich Nolan.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
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