Foreign Policy · Ideas & Institutions
TIER 4 Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:10:23 -0400 (EDT)
A behind-the-scenes note from FP’s energy and environment reporter
| | | Dear FP Insiders, If U.S. President Donald Trump’s favorite phrase is “tariffs”—as he has said—this past year suggests that “critical minerals” may be in the running for second place.Critical minerals are a group of raw materials deemed essential to U.S. national and economic security by agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, whose list has only grown over the years, jumping from 35 commodities in 2018 to 60 in 2025. It’s a reflection of just how dominant the critical minerals challenge has become in Washington. The current landscape looks markedly different than it did some five years ago, when I first started covering the resource race for Foreign Policy. Back then, the minerals question mostly centered on powering the energy transition and batteries for electric vehicles, which got a big boost from the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. No more. Today, the conversation is hyper-focused on national security, artificial intelligence, and the mineral demands of the U.S. war machine. And in all of these conversations, China—which commands many of the world’s mineral supply chains—looms large. As fears of China’s supply chain grip have grown—and Beijing has successfully leveraged that in trade negotiations with the United States—the second Trump administration has gone all-in on plugging U.S. mineral vulnerabilities, even making the issue a key focal point of its domestic and foreign policy. Take, for instance, the Trump administration’s stunning embrace of state capitalism, much of which has revolved around mining firms. Or its pitch for a global critical minerals trading bloc. Or its rollout of a $12 billion critical mineral stockpile. Or all of its efforts to unleash more mining and pump money into the sector, both on land and in the ocean. Or the times it has publicly sought access to minerals in Greenland, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and more. The list goes on and on. It has been a fascinating shift to investigate as a reporter for FP, and in March I traveled to Toronto to understand how the tens of thousands of attendees at the world’s biggest mining conference are capitalizing on this current moment. On the ground at this year’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) meeting, there was a palpable buzz in the air as throngs of miners, government officials, and investors schmoozed and struck deals. Both inside the cavernous halls of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and the nearby stretch of hotels and coffee shops, an endless stream of people in sleek suits and cowboy hats jockeyed for investment. Delegations from dozens of countries had flocked to Toronto for the conference, and one miner remarked to me that PDAC had now seized the attention of governments that never made an effort to show up a decade ago. With all eyes on the critical minerals boom, no one, it turns out, wants to be left out of the fun. More recently, the Iran war has exposed just how reliant the U.S. military is on powerful minerals and metals whose supply chains are overwhelmingly commanded by other countries, as I’ve reported on for Foreign Policy. Weeks of U.S. military operations against Iran burned through stockpiles of munitions—many of which rely on raw materials that are not always easily replaced. Notably, just one day before the United States and Israel struck Iran, the U.S. Defense Department reportedly asked mining companies to submit new proposals that would help fortify U.S. supplies of 13 critical minerals, including certain rare earths and metals such as tungsten, which has also been a target in the U.S.-China trade war. Tungsten in particular offers a revealing glimpse into the scale of the U.S. challenge going forward. The silvery metal may not dominate headlines as much as rare earths, but it is known for its density and extremely high melting point, making it an essential component in the U.S. defense industry, as I’ve reported. But the United States hasn’t commercially mined any tungsten in more than a decade, although the Trump administration is now eager to reverse course. The critical minerals challenge is here to stay. It won’t be an easy road ahead for any future U.S. administration, not least because the United States—having largely outsourced its mining industry decades ago—may struggle to build the skilled workforce necessary to transform the country back into a mining power. Engineering new supply chains isn’t just a question of building new mines; it requires a whole host of processing and manufacturing capabilities, which take time and capital to establish. Looming over the future of the U.S. industry is also a raft of big economic, environmental, regulatory, and health questions with which communities across the United States have long wrestled. All of these issues are certain to come to a head next month, when Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet for highly anticipated talks in China—the first such trip by a U.S. president in nearly a decade. China’s rare-earth dominance has been a powerful card in Beijing’s hand and is certain to remain a pressure point for the remainder of Trump’s term. I’ll be closely tracking any developments for Foreign Policy , so keep an eye out for my byline to stay up to date on all the latest news in this area. One last note: Before I go, I want to thank you for being an FP Insider and for your support of FP’s journalism. We’re a small but ambitious team, and every bit of support we get from readers like you makes it possible for us to keep taking big swings and produce meaningful reporting. For that, we’re very grateful. Cheers,
Christina Lu
Energy and Environment Reporter
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