President Donald Trump spent much of 2025 hacking large parts of the federal government. His administration has laid off, bought out, or otherwise displaced hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Entire agencies were destroyed. By many measures, this year in politics has been defined more by what was cut than by what was added.
Under Trump, however, one tiny corner of regulation has actually expanded: the list of essential minerals. Most people probably hadn't heard of “critical minerals” until earlier this year, when the president repeatedly inserted the phrase into his statements, turning the once obscure policy area into a household phrase. In November, the USGS quietly expanded the list from 50 to 60 items, adding copper, silver, uranium and even metallurgical coal. On Monday, South Korean metal refinery Korea Zinc announced that the federal government will invest in new $7.4 billion zinc plant in Tennesseein which the Department of Defense will have a stake.
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But what is a critical mineral anyway?
The concept dates back to the first half of the twentieth century, especially World War II, when Congress passed legislation aimed at stockpiling materials vital to the well-being of the United States. President Trump created a list of critical minerals in 2018, defining criteria that any mineral included must be “essential to the economic and national security of the United States” and the supply chain “vulnerable to disruption.” Being on the list can bring a host of benefits to anyone attempting to mine or produce this mineral in the United States, including faster access to mining permits, tax breaks, or federal funding.
As Grist researched in its recent issue on miningCritical minerals shape everything from geopolitics to water supplies, oceans and recycling systems. If we want to achieve a true clean energy transition, these elements will be key to it. Metals such as lithium, cobaltAnd nickel form the basis of the batteries that power electric vehicles. Silicon is the main component of solar cells and rare earth magnets that help power wind turbines. Not to mention computers, microchips and a host of other things that rely on essential minerals.
Currently, the vast majority of critical minerals used in the United States come from China—about 80 percent. In his first term, Trump tried to increase domestic production of these minerals. “The United States must not continue to depend on foreign competitors such as Russia and China to obtain the critical minerals needed to maintain a strong economy and security for our country,” he said in 2017. Securing domestic supplies was also a cornerstone of former President Joseph Biden's landmark climate bills, the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Relief Act.
Now that Trump is back in office, he has made critical minerals an even more central part of his policy platform. We're here to set the record straight on why this has been a record year for critical minerals in the United States—and where the industry could go in the future.
A very unusual strategy
In March, Trump published decree designed to give impetus to the extraction of essential minerals. “It is critical to our national security that the United States immediately take action to facilitate domestic mining to the greatest extent possible,” he said. The order was just the first step in a coordinated effort by the Trump administration to tighten U.S. control over existing supply chains for copper, lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel and dozens of other critical minerals, and to bring new mines online despite concerns raised by indigenous peoples. The Trump administration has sought to achieve these goals by lowering regulatory barriers to manufacturing and investing in companies willing to do so.
Since then, Trump has signed agreements with many countries on increase investment in essential minerals and strengthen supply chains. Most recently, the US entered into a deal with Democratic Republic of the Congowhich contains more than 70 percent of the world's cobalt reserves. He forced federal agencies make it easier mining companies to apply for federal funding and invites companies to apply for seabed mining in deep waters around American Samoanear Guam and Northern Mariana Islandsaround the Cook Islands and in international waters south of Hawaii, causing global outrage and resistance from Native Hawaiians, Samoans, and Chamorro/Chamoru peoples. At the same time, Trump's unstable tariff policy made it harder for U.S. mining companies, and cuts in federal funding have hurt mining training programs and research on essential minerals.
While the Biden administration provided grants and loans to various mining companies, Trump is rolling out very unusual strategy purchasing interests in private companies, tying the financial interests of the US government to the interests and success of these commercial mining operations. Over the past few months, the Trump administration has spent more than a billion dollars in public money to buy minority stakes in private companies such as MP Minerals, ReElement Technologies and Vulcan Elements. In Alaska, the strategy included investing more than $35 million in Trilogy Metals to buy a 10 percent stake in the company, which is the primary backer of the Alaska copper-cobalt project.
In September, the Trump administration finalized another deal with Lithium Americas, the Canadian company behind Thacker Pass in Nevada, which is expected to be the largest lithium mine in the United States. The Biden Administration approved a $2.23 billion loan to Lithium Americas in October 2024; The Trump administration then restructured the loan and took a 5 percent stake in the project and another 5 percent in Lithium Americas itself. (It has since been reported that a senior Interior Ministry official received financial benefit from the project.) And this despite accusations that the mine violates the rights of neighboring tribal peoples and acts without their consent, which Lithium Americas denies.
Prospects for Critical Minerals
Historically, the federal government has only purchased shares of struggling companies, such as through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was aimed at stabilizing the auto industry and U.S. banks during the 2008 financial crisis. “What we're talking about here is something very different, it's an industry that hasn't started yet,” said Beija Spiller, who leads work on critical minerals at the nonprofit research group Resources for the Future.
“I think it’s unlikely that this will work,” Spiller continued. “The best way to get the industry going is to have policies that make waves for everyone, rather than just picking winners.”
Speaking about Lithium Americas, Spiller said, “If you really look at the cost fundamentals, it's not a very competitive company.” At Lithium Americas, the metal is mined from clay, an old process that requires a lot of land, open pits and heavy machinery, while some newer facilities use direct lithium mining, which is more cost-effective in the long run. “So we just took a stake in a company that is going to face cost headwinds—the American public is now facing this downside.”
It should also be emphasized that the Trump administration's rapid efforts to strengthen U.S. control over critical minerals are not aimed at transitioning the country away from fossil fuels. Instead, the efforts appear to be primarily aimed at military use. Trump's “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” allocated $7.5 billion for critical minerals, $2 billion of which will go directly to the national defense stockpile. Another $5 billion was allocated to the Department of Defense to invest in critical mineral supply chains.
In October, a former Defense Department official said Financial Times that the agency is “incredibly focused on inventory.” “They're definitely looking for more, and they're doing it in a targeted and expansive way, and they're looking for new sources of various ores needed for defense products,” the unnamed official said.
Last week the administration announced that they plan to acquire stakes in more mining companies next year. It's possible, Spiller said, that those investments could spread to businesses that pilot deep-sea mining. This brings with it a new set of risks, as many banks refuse to insure deep sea mining operations, it is unclear whether seafloor mining operations will be able to begin at all before the end of Trump's term, and the legal implications associated with it. undermining the law of the sea could undermine stability among world powers and significantly complicate global action to combat climate change.
