President Donald Trump’s wish list for acquiring new U.S. territories and making deals includes areas with a major feature in common: access to critical minerals.
In recent weeks, the president has suggested a minerals-for-aid “deal” with Ukraine, drawing pushback from Russia. He’s repeatedly suggested the U.S. will acquire Greenland, a mineral-rich Danish territory, possibly by force. And he has said Canada could become the 51st state — which Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said should be taken seriously, noting Trump was interested in Canadian minerals.
“It’s almost like a resource-based foreign policy that we’re already starting to see … China has been doing it for decades,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Critical Minerals Security Program. “We see minerals featuring as a much clearer part of our strategy abroad.”
Trump is the latest president to take on an old challenge: China controls processing of critical minerals like cobalt, lithium and nickel, as well as rare earth elements needed to make military and energy equipment. The U.S. has moved to chip away at China’s dominance over supply chains but has trailed efforts like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has built out infrastructure in developing countries to access minerals.
