SunSirs: Overview of the First Year of Trump's Critical Minerals 2.0 Strategy

2025 marks the first year of Trump's Critical Minerals 2.0 Strategy. Faced with the supply chain dilemma where 12 types of critical minerals are 100% dependent on imports and 29 types have an import dependency exceeding 50%, the Trump administration, in its second term, continues the "America First" slogan from its first term and simplifies the issue of critical mineral supply chains into "transactions" and "control". Domestically in the United States, it strengthens the state's involvement and intervention in the critical minerals sector through administrative measures and direct government investment in core enterprises. Internationally, it promotes the construction of a geographically exclusive critical mineral supply chain through coercive transactions under the pretext of "peace" and "security", and puts forward the "Don-Ro Doctrine" aimed at controlling the Western Hemisphere, pushing the global supply of critical minerals towards an uncertain future.

Administrative orders lead the way

Remove obstacles and accelerate the production of critical minerals

Activate the emergency authorization under the Defense Production Act. On January 20, 2025, the first day of Trump's inauguration as president, he signed the "National Energy Emergency" executive order, elevating the security of critical minerals to a "national energy emergency". The goal is to achieve that by 2030, the proportion of 25 core critical minerals supplied domestically or by allies reaches ≥90%. Within January, 20 projects were quickly approved, requiring federal agencies to start emergency procedures to shorten the environmental assessment and licensing cycles. The quickly approved projects include lithium, copper, rare earths, uranium/vanadium, antimony/gold, zinc/manganese, titanium, potassium, and 10 other projects covering critical minerals such as palladium, silver, nickel, etc.

Establish a government inter-departmental coordination hub. On February 14, 2025, Trump signed the executive order "Establishing the National Interdepartmental Energy Dominance Committee (NEDC)", explicitly incorporating critical minerals into the scope of energy dominance and strengthening the coordination of federal land and resource development. In conjunction with the National Energy Emergency Order issued on January 20, 2025, aiming at issues such as the United States' high dependence on imports for critical minerals and the lag in the approval of energy infrastructure, the inter-departmental coordination hub NEDC was established. This agency is affiliated with the Executive Office of the President, and its core mission is to coordinate the mining, production, transportation, approval and supervision of energy and critical minerals in a "whole-of-government" model, formulate a national energy dominance strategy, eliminate approval barriers, leverage private sector investment, and reduce approval internal friction through inter-departmental coordination.

Comprehensively accelerate the production of domestic critical minerals. On March 20, 2025, Trump signed the executive order "Taking Immediate Measures to Increase U.S. Mineral Production", invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA) to use emergency powers to comprehensively accelerate the development of the entire critical minerals industry chain. The NEDC will coordinate and implement the prioritization of mineral production on federal lands, shorten the approval cycle for mining projects from 3 years to 6 months, and expand the number of priority projects from 20 to more than 50. The first batch of priority project lists for critical minerals has been sorted out, and coordination with the U.S. Department of the Interior has been made to lift mineral development bans in regions such as Nevada and New Mexico, releasing the production capacity of federal lands. The drafting of the "National Energy Leadership Strategy" has been initiated, expanding the approval acceleration mechanism of the January emergency order to cover the entire industrial chain, and adding two core tools: DPA financing and priority development of federal lands.

Coal is classified as a "critical mineral". On April 8, 2025, Trump signed the executive order "Revitalizing America's Beautiful and Clean Coal Industry". Relying on DPA and NEDC to unblock channels for funds, approvals and land, it provides support for power supply to AI data centers, coal used in iron and steel metallurgy, and exports. Relying on DPA Title III to obtain special financing, it is expected that U.S. coal production will increase by 15% to 20% from 2025 to 2027, creating approximately 50,000 to 80,000 new jobs and driving the energy economy in the Midwest. Stable supply of metallurgical coal will boost the steel industry, and the electricity cost of AI data centers will be reduced by about 20% to 30%, supporting the expansion of the digital economy. It will fill the gap of coal in the critical mineral system and form a full-chain energy and mineral security network together with lithium, rare earths, etc.

Equity binding

Activate the vitality of production enterprises and capital markets

Revising laws has opened the floodgates of funds for government equity participation. The Trump administration, through legal revisions, has unlocked a hundred-billion-yuan level of funds for the country to intervene in key mineral resources, energy and other fields. The core is to link national security with industrial strategies, and implement operations through the Department of Defense's Strategic Capital Office and the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, opening up diversified funding channels such as financing, appropriations, equity, and credit. It has activated the Defense Production Act, incorporating the production capacity of critical minerals into the scope of national security; allocated US$7.5 billion for critical minerals through the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act (OBBA) (US$2 billion for expanding reserves, US$5 billion for supply chain investment, and US$500 million for credit); adjusted the use of funds under the CHIPS and Science Act, with at least US$2 billion of chip subsidy funds converted into equity investments in critical mineral projects such as rare earths and lithium; and revised the tax rules of the Inflation Reduction Act to add tax incentives to equity investment projects in critical minerals, tilting towards domestic critical mineral projects in the United States.

The government's shareholding strengthens its control over core production enterprises. The U.S. government has formed an operational framework of "equity intervention + power attachment + industrial chain binding" through forms such as preferred shares, warrants, loan-to-equity swaps, golden shares, and grants for equity. Over the past year, the Trump administration has invested more than $1 billion to acquire shares in mining companies. The transactions include the Department of Defense's $400 million acquisition of a 15% stake in MP Materials (providing a $150 million loan, signing a 10-year floor price procurement agreement, and requiring an improvement in heavy rare earth separation capacity), a $670 million acquisition of shares in magnet manufacturer Vulcan Elements, and a $35.6 million acquisition of shares in Canada's Trilogy Metals Inc along with additional warrants. The Department of Energy has negotiated to convert a $2.26 billion loan for American Lithium's Thacker Pass lithium mine project into a 5% to 10% stake in the company, becoming its potential largest shareholder. The first phase of the project can replace 80% of U.S. lithium imports and is scheduled to start production in 2026.

Revising the list of critical minerals to calibrate strategic directions. On November 6, 2025, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the Department of the Interior released the "2025 Final List of Critical Minerals". The total number of mineral species increased from 50 in 2022 to 60, with 10 new minerals including copper, silver, uranium, boron, lead, metallurgical coal, phosphate, potash, rhenium, and silicon added. This is the most significant adjustment since the list was established in 2018. In accordance with the requirements of the 2020 Energy Act, the list must be reviewed and updated at least every 3 years. Minerals included in the list will receive U.S. federal funding support, and exploration, mining, and refining projects will enjoy a green channel for approval to promote the expansion of domestic production capacity; they may be included in the scope of Section 232 investigations, affecting tariffs and import controls; they will attract mining investment, force allies to strengthen mineral cooperation, and reduce dependence on specific regions. The 2025 list forms a coverage pattern of "industrial foundation + energy security + agricultural guarantee" and uses a scientific risk assessment model to accurately identify weak links in the supply chain, providing clear guidance for policy implementation.

Equity investment has activated the market and driven private capital to follow suit. The government's shareholding has played the role of a "confidence anchor". The stock price of American Lithium soared by 98.7% after hours driven by the news of the shareholding, and the stock price of Trilogy Metals surged by more than 250%. Such market reactions have attracted private capital to follow up, alleviated the dilemma of capital loss in mining investment, and provided sufficient financial support for capacity expansion. The resonance between over 100 billion US dollars of policy funds and the enthusiasm of the capital market has led to an average increase of over 241% in the stock prices of US rare earth miners since 2025, with some enterprises seeing an increase of 5 times. In the process of equity acquisition and financing of MP company by the US Department of Defense, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs followed up with an investment of 1 billion US dollars. JPMorgan Chase issued a statement in October 2025, committing to invest 1.5 trillion US dollars within 10 years in 27 sub-fields including mining, refining, solar and nuclear energy, battery storage and military supplies.

Build and promote its domestic supply

A rapidly growing industrial ecosystem

It protects its domestic critical mineral enterprises through vertical integration. It builds a full-chain closed-loop layout, which not only controls core mineral resources through equity investment, but also requires terminal manufacturing enterprises to provide procurement guarantees, forming a vertically integrated industrial ecosystem. In February 2023, General Motors (GM) announced that it would invest 650 million US dollars to take a stake in Lithium Americas. In October 2024, it adjusted to inject 625 million US dollars to obtain a 38% stake in Lithium Americas' flagship project, the Thacker Pass hard rock lithium mine. Through the combined strategy of "equity binding + long-term off-take + technical collaboration + supply chain localization", it focuses on the Thacker Pass hard rock lithium mine and links lithium extraction from salt lakes and brine projects in South America, forming a full-chain lock covering mining, refining and off-take, supporting the demand for more than 1 million electric vehicles per year. At the same time, the U.S. government has also extended its shareholding to the downstream manufacturing sector, taking stakes in companies such as Intel and binding them for supply chain collaboration.

Introduce a price floor policy for critical minerals. To address the issue of high domestic production costs in the United States, Trump has introduced a Price Floor policy for critical minerals. Centered on Section 232 national security investigations, and combined with the Inflation Reduction Act, the Defense Production Act, etc., it authorizes the government to set price floors through tools such as negotiations, procurement agreements, and tariffs, and to enforce them when necessary. The policy aims to solve the problems of insufficient investment in domestic production capacity and fragile supply chains caused by low market pricing, and to prevent the risk of supply disruptions. The policy covers 60 minerals on the USGS 2025 Critical Minerals List, with priority given to varieties with fragile supply chains and high import dependence, such as rare earths, lithium, cobalt, gallium, and germanium.

Building a tariff barrier for key mineral imports under "Section 232". On April 15, 2025, Trump signed an executive order, requiring the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to launch a national security review of imports of processed key minerals and their derivatives in accordance with Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The core is to assess the threat posed by import dependence to U.S. national defense and supply chain resilience, replacing the previously announced "reciprocal tariffs" with Section 232 tariffs. The scope covers 50 key minerals listed by the USGS (lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths, etc.), 17 rare earth elements, uranium, as well as their processed forms and derivatives. It requires a preliminary report to be submitted within 90 days to assess and identify high-risk source countries, as well as risks such as supply disruptions and price fluctuations, and to study the feasibility and effectiveness of measures such as tariffs, quotas, investment reviews, subsidies for domestic production capacity, and strategic reserves.

Address the shortcomings of American industries through the "Future Mine Plan". The United States is highly dependent on foreign countries for rare earth separation technology and lithium processing capacity. In 2025, the United States launched the "Future Mine Plan", which is led by the Department of Energy and builds a full-chain support system of "technology research and development - test verification - commercial implementation" through a special fund of 815 million US dollars. In September 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy officially launched 80 million U.S. dollars in funding for test sites and 15 million U.S. dollars in laboratory research and development funds, marking the shift of the United States from "strategic reserves" to "technological breakthroughs". At the level of supply security, the self-sufficiency rate of critical minerals will be increased from 38% to 65% through the upgrading of domestic production capacity in the United States; at the level of technological hegemony, it will compete for the right to formulate standards in fields such as intelligent mining and deep-sea development; at the level of rule leadership, it will build a mineral trade and development system with "American standards".

Promote and expand the national strategic reserves of critical minerals. The core of expanding the National Strategic Mineral Reserve (NMSR) is to rely on laws such as the "Big and Beautiful Act" and the "Defense Production Act", supported by a special budget of 2 billion US dollars, focusing on 38 minerals with high external dependence such as rare earths, lithium, cobalt, gallium, and germanium, to build a three-dimensional reserve system of "physical reserves, production capacity, and allied joint reserves". The goal is to increase the reserve period of core varieties to more than 180 days by 2027. As of January 2026, in terms of funds, the first batch of 1 billion US dollars in procurement funds from the U.S. Department of Defense has been in place, focusing on strategic varieties such as cobalt, rare earths, antimony, and tantalum; in terms of facilities, the Nevada Strategic Reserve (SMR) is being accelerated to centrally store rare earths, lithium and other minerals; in terms of collaboration, the United States and Australia have signed an 8.5 billion US dollar agreement, which includes a rare earth price floor and joint reserve clauses, promoting G7 allies to jointly build a critical mineral production alliance; in terms of legislation, the "2026 Securing Critical American Resources and Elemental Minerals Act" plans to set up a 2.5 billion US dollar "Strategic Resilience Reserve" (SRR), establishing a physical storage and supervision committee similar to the strategic petroleum reserve.

Building a "America First

Global Critical Minerals Supply Closed Loop

Putting pressure on major resource-rich countries in the name of "peace" and "security" to reshape a division of labor system centered on the United States. On April 30, 2025, the Trump administration promoted and pressured Ukraine to sign an agreement in the name of peace, locking in the development rights of 57 types of critical minerals in Ukraine under the banner of "peace and reconstruction". On October 26, 2025, it threatened with tariffs and signed trade and critical minerals agreements with four Southeast Asian countries: Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. It signed a "peace for minerals" agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The United States led mediation efforts aimed at ending the 30-year conflict in eastern DRC (North Kivu and South Kivu) and concluded mineral development cooperation clauses. According to the framework agreement, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) will cooperate with Gécamines, the state-owned mining company of the DRC. American enterprises will obtain priority investment and procurement rights for critical minerals such as cobalt, copper, and lithium, with supporting infrastructure investment tied to resource development.

Establishing a "Critical Minerals Trading Club". In August 2025, the United States, together with 10 countries including the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, established the "Minerals Security Partnership Financing Network". In October 2025, the initiative to form the "Critical Minerals Trading Club" was launched. Serving as a core platform for multiple Western countries to conduct critical mineral refining, processing and trade, the club has attracted the participation of countries such as Japan, South Korea and Australia, with the ultimate goal of "gaining sufficient strength to lead and win the artificial intelligence competition". The financing network led by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Department of the Interior and the DFC manages assets exceeding 30 trillion U.S. dollars, providing special loans and equity support for projects. Member states open up new mining rights to U.S. enterprises, which can obtain 70% of the output from some projects before recovering their investments, and the profits are distributed based on the "investment proportion plus output sharing" principle. The U.S. side provides exploration and smelting technologies and promotes the establishment of "club standards" in an attempt to enhance the technological leadership of Western countries in the processing link.

Unilaterally accelerating the development of deep-sea mineral resources. On April 24, 2025, Trump signed the executive order "Unleashing America's Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources", bypassing international maritime organizations, unilaterally accelerating the exploration, extraction and processing of deep-sea minerals (nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, rare earths, etc.) on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and in the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), building an offshore mineral supply chain, and strengthening U.S. dominance in deep-sea mining technology and international rules. Led by the NEDC, it coordinates with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of State and other departments to regularly report progress to the President. Priority will be given to advancing projects such as the polymetallic nodule project in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the Pacific Ocean and the cobalt-rich crust project in the offshore waters of Alaska to ensure implementation efficiency.

Put forward the "Trump Doctrine" to control the Western Hemisphere. On December 4, 2025, the Trump administration officially released the National Security Strategy (NSS) for its second term, explicitly listing the Western Hemisphere (the Americas) as the highest priority in the United States' global strategy, and emphasizing the use of military and strategic forces to ensure America's absolute influence in the Western Hemisphere. The core of the strategy is to shift the security of critical minerals and energy from "offshore balancing" to direct control of the Western Hemisphere, so as to achieve the goals of supply chain autonomy and geopolitical exclusivity. It will fully promote nearshore production and carry out smelting and processing within the framework of USMCA to meet the subsidy requirement in the Inflation Reduction Act that "critical minerals are sourced from North America" (which needs to reach 80% by 2027). At the same time, it will form a closed loop of "mining in the Western Hemisphere - nearshore processing - consumption in the United States" to reduce dependence on extraterritorial regions such as Australia, Guinea, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In 2025, after Trump began his second term, in order to quickly enhance the security level of the supply of critical minerals in the United States, he launched a "CEO governance model" domestically and pursued a radical "Don-Ron Doctrine" globally. On the surface, although Trump's Critical Minerals 2.0 strategy aims directly at the weaknesses of American industries, the strained U.S. national finances, the collapsing alliance relations, the conflict-ridden land rights system, and the tense partisan struggles will eventually make this strategy a splendid "Emperor's New Clothes".

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