Behind the effort to control Mr. Trump’s strategic metal

On February 1, US President Donald Trump announced an additional 10% tax on Chinese goods. Three days later, the country responded by cutting the export of essential metals to serve advanced industry and US defense. By February 10, Mr. Trump provided Ukrainian aid conditions to the country’s priority access to mineral resources.

These moves clearly show the level of the Trump administration’s impact on the global strategic metal market, in the context of the economic battle between the two superpowers, according to The world.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), there are 50 types of minerals that are considered important, including a number of rare earth elements, Nickel and Lithium. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy said it owned 22 of the 34 types of minerals that the European Union (EU) identified as important.

The strategic metal portfolio includes industrial and construction materials, iron alloys, colored metals and some rare earth elements. The World Economic Forum (WEF) identified Ukraine as an important potential provider of Lithium, Beryllium, Mangan, Gallium, Apatite and Nickel …

President Trump has repeatedly asked the US to buy the Greenland Island, where 25 minerals were considered by the European Commission as an important raw material. They include a large amount of materials used in battery, electric cars and wind turbines such as graphite, lithium, and soil. These materials are used in electric vehicles, renewable energy and military equipment production.

Experts say that by targeting Ukrainian and Greenland’s underground resources, Mr. Trump is trying to ensure a strategic metal supply for the US industry and escape from dependence on China. The second largest economy in the world accounts for a large proportion in the production of these metals and controls almost the whole (90%) of refining – the key stage in the value chain.

Economist Philippe Chalmin, president of Cyclopiosus Research Center, said Western countries have transferred metal refining activities to China for economic and environmental reasons over the past few decades. “But now this has become their Achilles heel,” he said.

In parallel, looking for supply outside China, the US mining industry has reinforced the ability to control autonomy. The rare Mountain Pass in California was reopened in 2012, after 10 years of operation.

In 2022, the Pentagon signed a contract with Lynas Company (Australia) – the largest rare land manufacturer outside China – to build an ore treatment plant in Texas, expected to operate this year. In early 2025, Rare Earths (USA) also first refined the rare earth ore from a mine in Texas.

Not only the US, in 2023 the European Union through regulations on important raw materials. Stéphane Séjourné, Vice Chairman of the European Commission in charge of industrial strategy calling for “accelerating the reopening of mines in Europe”. However, new exploitation projects faced opposition due to concerns of environmental impact.

Earlier this year, Oleksiy Sobolev, Deputy Minister of Economic Ukraine said it negotiated with Western allies (USA, UK, France and Italy) on important mineral exploitation projects. According to the Ukrainian National Geological Agency, the Government prepared about 100 locations to license and develop mineral projects, but have not yet published more details. Estimated investment potential in this field will reach about US $ 12-15 billion by 2033.

Guillaume Pitron, a researcher at the Institute of International Relations and Strategy (IRIS) and Chairman of Psyché 16 Mineral Research Company, said the average takes 15 years to put a mine into exploitation. Therefore, without acting from now on, the world will face the risk of serious metal deficiency in the coming decades. Meanwhile, the recycling industry is not sufficient to develop – mainly due to high cost and low profit – to compensate for future shortage.

For example in Ukraine, although the labor force is highly qualified at relatively low costs and development infrastructure, investors still point out many barriers to mining activities. These challenges include inefficient, complex, difficult to access geological data and obstacles in land use rights. This causes projects to take many years to implement and need large initial investment, according to Reuters.

At this time, a large -scale wave of merger is coming back. At the end of January, the news of the ability to merge between the two “giants” is Glencore and Rio Tinto again stirred up the market. The two sides negotiated during the second half of 2024, but has not reached an agreement. However, these negotiations reflect the disturbance and fierce competition in the field of strategic metal exploitation, according to The world.

On the market, after a period of skyrocketing the pandemic, many important metals witnessed a sharp decline in the year. The price of lithium and cobalt decreased by 70% and 15% and Nickel lowered 9%, after “evaporating” 45% in 2023. Even copper – indispensable metal in the process of gasification – also struggling at the threshold of $ 10,000 Each ton, much lower than the expectations of experts.

The main cause of metal prices decreased deep due to the smaller electric vehicle sales and uncertainty around the battery technology. The deployment of super factories (Gigafactory) in Europe is more difficult than expected. The construction crisis in China – the largest metal consumption in the world – also reduces the demand for steel and copper.

“In recent years, the metal market is like the promised land, but everything is still too early,” Chalmin said. But he warned that the demand was still very high in the coming years, to the point where there was a risk of some metals, especially copper.