It wasn’t long ago that many Americans thought critical minerals were our Achilles’ Heel. Virtually everything we needed for our economic and national security—from semiconductors to cell phones, from missiles to fighter jets, and from fiber optics to steel—relied on critical minerals, and America had virtually no domestic supply. Meanwhile, China, which President Trump called “a threat to the world,” controlled 70% of the market. It wasn’t hard to imagine China shutting off our critical minerals supply and, with it, much of our economy and our military.
The Trump Administration has put us on a much better trajectory. Between the administration’s multi-billion investment with MP Materials (including setting a price floor), its $12 billion investment in Project Vault, and its efforts to ease mining regulations, America’s supply of raw critical minerals has never been better.
Yet the Trump Administration cannot afford to rest on its laurels. The problem is not solved. While we have a growing supply of raw materials, we have virtually no processing capacity. This risks putting us in the absurd position of mining critical minerals here, only to send them to China or other unreliable nations for processing. We’re still vulnerable.
The Trump Administration should therefore double down on recent efforts to re-focus on boosting critical minerals processing—the processes used to chemically separate individual minerals into the pure forms used by defense contractors and chip manufacturers. This is where China’s advantage is most pronounced: despite our growing supply of raw minerals, China controls 85% of the world’s processing capacity, while America has a negligible portion of the market. Indeed, we are 100% import-reliant for 12 critical minerals.
If we do not create immense processing capability here in the U.S.—and do so quickly—our national and economic security is at China’s mercy. That said, we are never going to beat China by having cheaper, less-protected labor or turning a blind eye to toxic byproducts. We cannot beat China at its own game, nor should we. We should do it our way and leapfrog them.
There is a good reason America has historically chosen not to process here. It is a notoriously expensive, inefficient, and toxic endeavor. Processing plants require a football-field-sized maze of pipes and tanks filled with potentially toxic acids. Dissolved metals flow through hundreds of mixers and settlers with chemical reagents. Acid waste and radioactive runoff are common.
Americans are never going to accept that sort of facility nearby. Besides, these facilities will take decades to set up and, given China’s increasingly bellicose actions towards’ Taiwan and our urgent need to replenish guided missiles following Operation Epic Fury, that’s time we do not have. Even if we tried, China could manipulate prices to undercut American facilities and nip them in the bud.
The answer is better technology. We need scalable, modular technologies, ideally at mine sites, to create high-purity separation of critical minerals from one another. Such technologies would, if developed, create a host of benefits for U.S. national and economic interests.
First and foremost, they could come online quickly to “bridge the gap” while large-scale or centralized systems are built. While the warning that we could have a hot conflict with China by 2027 is likely alarmist, there is no question tensions are very high, particularly concerning trade. If nothing else, shrinking one of the biggest vulnerabilities in our economy would strengthen our hand in any trade negotiation.
Better technologies would have ancillary benefits, too. They would turn what is currently a major cost for mines—namely, waste disposal—into a revenue stream, making the Trump Administration’s major investments into raw materials pay off faster and become self-sustaining. As refined minerals fetch a far higher price than raw ore, such technologies would also enable mines to work their way up the value chain and become more profitable more quickly. Such modular technologies would circumvent NIMBY complaints and make it easier for mines to make small investments and see results rather than make massive, capital-intensive investments that could take years to make returns—or expose the mines to long-term swings in commodity pricing.
The upshot for the Trump Administration is clear: invest in technologies America can dominate. Apply America’s greatest competitive advantage—our innovation economy—to our greatest national security vulnerability. Don’t try to catch China by playing their game or using their technologies; force China to play ours. The Trump Administration has already made some key investments in technology, but America’s innovators have far more to offer.
The Trump Administration has given the critical minerals issue the serious focus it deserves, and, thanks to that focus, we are in a much stronger position than we were four years ago. With technological investment, we can finish the job.
About the Author: Jordan Sessler
Jordan Sessler is the co-founder of Supra Elemental Recovery, a Texas-based critical mineral technology company.
