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--:-- Noel King: In President Trump's second term, we've seen a lot of news about tariffs. Chinese imports into the U.S. now face a 30 percent tariff down. About Congress. The one big beautiful bill enshrines into law and funds President Trump's promises. About Elon Musk and Doge. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. Those are the loud stories of the Trump administration. There's a quieter story, though. President Trump's obsession with critical minerals.
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--:-- Noel King: We believe it's possible to extract enormous amounts of critical minerals and rare earths, which you know we need for technology and high technology in the process. In South Africa, Ukraine, China, Greenland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the ocean. What exactly is going on right now? That's coming up on Today Explained.
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--:-- Noel King: Support for Today Explained comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Fall is here. Might be time to find some nice new pieces you can wear again and again. With Saks Fifth Avenue, it can be a breeze to shop for your personal style, like maybe a relaxed Prada blazer or Gucci loafers that are great for both work and the weekend.
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--:-- Noel King: This is very Sean. This is very Sean-coded. Gucci loafers. Saks says Saks makes shopping feel totally customized to you, whether that's from an in-store stylist or a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you just what you want to see. They say they'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when something you've been eyeing is back in stock. You can find inspiration for your personal style every day at Saks Fifth Avenue.
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--:-- Noel King: Support for this show comes from Strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown? Or never wanted in the first place? Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying. But are they actually just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from strawberry.me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner. Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer.
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--:-- Noel King: Hello, friends. Ready for a new adventure? Today, we're going to learn everything about minerals. This is Today Explained. My name is Ernest Scheider. I'm a journalist at Reuters where I write about critical minerals. I'm also the author of a book called The War Below, Lithium, Copper and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: All right, Ernest, we promised the people we'd explain what is going on with the president and his fixation on critical minerals. Go ahead.
--:-- Noel King: Well, I think there's a realization by President Trump and those in his orbit that the United States produces relatively few of these critical minerals within its own borders. And that countries like China and others have large reserves and produce and process a lot of them. And so as our world becomes increasingly electrified, we're going to need a lot more of these critical minerals, not just in the United States, but globally.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: And so there's definitely a realization that we need to have more of these, not just for things like laptops and cell phones and electric vehicles, but also for key pieces of equipment used by the military. You know, fighter jets, submarines, laser guided missiles, et cetera. They're all made with critical minerals, some of them very niche and specific critical minerals.
--:-- Noel King: But the United States produces and processes very few of these today. So that's part of the reason why you're seeing the administration in Washington, and especially President Trump, make a big push for new, fresh supplies.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: So what are critical minerals exactly? So when we think about the periodic table of the elements, and stay with me here, you don't fall asleep. Sure. There's a whole host of items on that periodic table of the elements. And so copper might be the one that people might know the most about. It's used in wiring. It's used in motors and many other electronics.
--:-- Noel King: Lithium is used in lithium ion batteries, as the name, of course, implies. But the lithium ion battery really started to take off in the 1990s and early 2000s. Energizer E-squared lithium, the world's longest lasting AA battery in digital cameras. Record for up to 12 hours on one battery with a Sony Stamina Handycam camcorder.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: For decades before that, it was used in things like greases or in pharmacologics, so its use has definitely mushroomed in recent decades. Nickel is used to make stainless steel, but its use in the lithium-ion battery has become extremely important in that same time frame as well.
--:-- Noel King: Rare Earths are a subset of critical minerals. We said rare earth. They're very good rare earth. As you know, we're looking for rare earth all the time. They're a group of 17 minor metals found on that periodic table of the elements, and they're used to make magnets that turn power into motion.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: So the thing that makes your cell phone vibrate is a magnet made from rare earths. So broadly, when we look at critical minerals, copper has been one of the most important for many, many, many years. But when we look at all these other assortments of these niche areas like lithium or cobalt or rare earths, They've just exploded in popularity because of this electrified transition that our entire global economy is going through right now.
--:-- Noel King: What are they in that I might not know about, that I might not realize? One of the things that I like to talk about is just think about all of the gadgets and gizmos in your house, Noelle, that are powered by lithium-ion batteries today that weren't even 20 or 30 years ago.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: So a great example is a leaf blower. Leaf blowers historically have been powered by two-stroke engines and that are just really bad for the environment. They emit this noxious plume of pollutants that contribute to climate change. And so many governments across the planet are actually outlawing them or phasing them out.
--:-- Noel King: The answer, many people say, is get a leaf blower powered by a lithium-ion battery. And so you're starting to see these sprout up at home improvement stores across the United States and really the world. Here's the question that I have, though. Where do all the critical minerals used to make that electric leaf blower come from?
--:-- Ernest Scheider: Do we know that the copper is ethically sourced? Do we know that the lithium was produced in a sustainable manner that honored ESG and environmental commitments? And what about the other critical minerals in there? And we don't know.
--:-- Noel King: As part of my book I actually went down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out where do all the critical minerals come from in these leaf blowers and other household appliances now that are powered by lithium batteries And I actually couldn't find an answer because tracking that supply chain was extremely difficult.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: So this is not just about electric vehicles. This is about all the devices that we use every single day that are increasingly powered by these lithium-ion batteries. They're all built with critical minerals. And are critical minerals just things, I'm guessing here, that you dig up out of the ground?
--:-- Noel King: Yes, yeah, exactly. So for many of these critical minerals, they're extracted the way that you would extract, say, gold or silver, sort of a, you actually, you know, you have a big, you know, caterpillar or other piece of large earth-moving equipment that would take the rock out of the ground, and then you would process it in a series of chemical steps.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: That is the case for most of these critical minerals. Some have different methodologies, though, by ways that they are produced. Lithium, for instance, can be produced by basically filtering out lithium from brines or salty waters. And these are often found in places of South America, like in Chile or Bolivia or Argentina.
--:-- Noel King: But there's no way around it that broadly this involves mining. And mining is just not popular, depending on who you talk to. Mining is loud and it's intrusive and it can have an effect on the environment. But we have to have mining in order to have this electrified future.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: So there's a huge tension there. Yes. And in fact, your book is called The War Below, which which nods to some of the tension. What are the sides in that war?
--:-- Noel King: Yeah. So I see sort of two issues or two tension points here. Certainly there's the geopolitical tension, because we know right now that the United States produces relatively few amounts of these critical minerals. And China and its allies have spent the better part of the past 30 or 40 years cornering control of many of these critical mineral markets.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: And they've been very willing to use that control as economic leverage, as an economic weapon. There's also a battle here closer at home, Noel, because, you know, while we do have reserves of many of these critical minerals within our borders, we just generally don't like mining.
--:-- Noel King: People don't want a mine in their backyard or they don't want a mine where they might have gone camping or fishing as a child and have strong memories there. Or they just might have concerns about what mining might do to land in the long term.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: And so there's a big tension point there as well. And then I would add to that, that there's also a tension point around where we want to actually process these materials. Because once you take that rock out of the ground, you just can't put it into a battery. You then have to process it into a form that can be used to make a battery or other electronic device.
--:-- Noel King: So if people don't want to mine in their backyard, they definitely probably don't want a giant refining complex in their backyard as well. But that is an extremely important part of the supply chain here and has to be part of the conversation.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: The Trump administration's interest in critical minerals, which appears to be profound, almost makes it seem as if this is an existential struggle. This is one of the most important things that the American government can and should be thinking about.
--:-- Noel King: Well, what I would say is that whoever controls the production and processing of these critical minerals will control the 21st century economy the way that control of petroleum defined the 20th century economy. I mean, I think it's that stark of an issue here for us to look at.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: And this is something that not just President Trump is focused on. You know, many folks across the aisle in Washington, D.C., Democrats, Republicans and independents are focused on this. You know, I think it's the one issue actually that unites people politically in Washington, D.C. right now.
--:-- Noel King: Everyone in this room agrees that we must proactively manage the minerals that are crucial for our country's energy future. For both sides of the aisle and for all Americans, ensuring a stable supply of mineral resources is essential for our national security and future economic well-being.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: And it also was an area that President Biden, when he was in office, focused on. These minerals power phones and computers, household appliances, electric vehicles and batteries, solar panels, wind turbines and so much more. Without these minerals, we simply cannot function.
--:-- Noel King: They can't function. And I'm not saying that oil or natural gas will be phased out completely. I don't think that's a realistic assumption. But we do know that our economy, not just in the United States, but the economies of other nations across the world are expanding to include more and more of these critical minerals.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: And there's going to be a fight for supply on the global stage. And so the United States can either produce more of its own domestically or go out to global markets and try to tap deposits there. And this is something that is very, very, very, very much a focus for folks across the Washington establishment, not just President Trump.
--:-- Noel King: Ernest Scheider. He's a senior correspondent for Reuters. His book is called The War Below, Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives. Coming up, the art of the minerals deal.
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--:-- Noel King: Support for today's show comes from Adio. What is Adio? Adio is an AI-native customer relationship management system built specifically for the next era of companies. They say it's extremely powerful, adapts to your unique data structures and scales with any business model.
--:-- Ernest Scheider: According to Adio, Adio takes less than a minute to set up, and within seconds you will have your email and calendars synced. You'll see all your relationships in a fully-fledged platform, they say, all enriched with that actionable data.
--:-- Noel King: And they say you can build AI-powered automations and use its research agent to tackle some of your most complex processes to seize so that you can focus on what matters, building your company. You can join industry leaders such as Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and so much more. You can go to adio.com slash todayexplained to get 15% off your first year.
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--:-- Ernest Scheider: If you like to save but also like to stay in style, Burlington is your answer. And the question you'll be asking yourself is, why go anywhere else? Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow.
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--:-- Ernest Scheider: I sometimes wonder how many of you are running businesses out there. Please email me, noelle at king dot com. With Upwork, you can find specialized freelancers in IT, web development, AI, design, admin support, marketing, and more.
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--:-- Noel King: You're listening to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Gracelyn Baskarin is a mining economist by training. She now directs the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: Critical minerals at this moment are at the center of a lot of U.S. foreign policy. We are starting to see the rise of minerals diplomacy, which is what happens when we embed minerals into our foreign policy. We are forging alliances. We are making strategic decisions. We are pursuing certain objectives, all driven by a need to enhance our mineral security, which we acknowledge we can't do alone.
--:-- Noel King: Because at the end of the day, the U.S. still has limited geological reserves. So we have less than 1% of the world's cobalt, nickel, and graphite. So we have to work with other countries. Let's talk about the countries that do have what we want. And let's start with China.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: China is the leading producer of critical minerals. It has more or less cornered the market on refining them. What are the stakes here for the United States?
--:-- Noel King: So China has built this advantage in minerals through about 40 years of concerted effort by linking up their foreign policy so when you look at how they view things like belt and road initiative they have you know spent their money and made their decisions to secure minerals from africa latin america asia australia and then they bring it back home for processing so when we look at some of our key minerals like rare earth, graphite, cobalt, lithium, nickel, like they process between 40 and 90 percent of the world's supply.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: What this means for the United States is that China can now weaponize these minerals. China has banned the export of some materials essential to the manufacturing of electronics and some military equipment to the U.S. It comes in response to Washington's chip sanctions on Beijing.
--:-- Noel King: Rare earth minerals are a sort of ace up China's leave in the escalating trade battle. They represent a relatively small proportion of the country's exports, but they are crucial for the supply chains of other nations.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: And what this means, because the U.S. doesn't necessarily have alternate supply, is that we now face supply chain vulnerabilities and potentially undermine our ability to protect ourselves in the instance of war.
--:-- Noel King: How do you hear President Trump talking about this?
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: We've seen President Trump talk a lot about critical minerals. So we've seen executive orders on domestic production and processing, international cooperation. We've heard the president talk about it in the context of Ukraine.
--:-- Noel King: And one of the things we are doing is signing a deal very shortly with respect to rare earths with Ukraine, which they have tremendous value in rare earth. And we appreciate that. Democratic Republic of Congo. Many, many people come from the Congo. I don't know what that is, but they came from the Congo.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: Saudi Arabia. We are rocking. The United States is the hottest country, with the exception of your country, I have to say, right? I won't. I'm not going to take that on.
--:-- Noel King: No, Mohammed, I'm not going to take that on. We've seen him talk about mining under the sea. This administration is really thinking about all of the above, home, abroad, production, processing, on land, underwater, but really going at it with all the tools in the toolkit.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: All right, let's run through that list of countries that you just gave us. Ukraine. How do we hear President Trump trying to hone in on Ukraine when it comes to critical minerals?
--:-- Noel King: So President Trump has pushed for the reconstruction deal that we signed with Ukraine, which essentially creates a fund that in the long term is capitalized by future mineral oil and gas revenue in Ukraine, as well as co-capitalized by the United States.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: I said, well, we want something for our efforts beyond what you would think would be acceptable. And we said rare earth. They're very good. Now, Ukraine is a complicated place, though, and here's why.
--:-- Noel King: Some minerals are a little bit more, you know, what we might call shovel-ready, right? Something like lithium. But even then, you have complexity because two of the four lithium reserves in Ukraine are actually on Russian-occupied land.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: We actually don't have a good understanding of what is economically viable. You also mentioned DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is an interesting one because the U.S. does not generally spend a lot of time thinking about that nation.
--:-- Noel King: But not long ago, we saw the president of DRC on Fox News basically saying to President Trump, We want to extract these minerals, but also process them, as this would create a lot of jobs. And we want a partnership that will provide lasting peace and stability for our countries, which we need.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: So DRC has become a hot area in terms of mobilizing U.S. government efforts. So what's happened is there has been a conflict, a long-running conflict, between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
--:-- Noel King: The Congolese government has refuted M23's claims of an ongoing genocide against Tutsis in the DRC. They say it's a pretext for M23's backers, Rwanda, to invade Congo by proxy and take control of its vast mineral resources.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: This battle, which has been raging for close to 30 years, is always about the control of Congo mineral wealth Our Congolese are paying the price Now what President of Congo the DRC came to President Trump and said is like we need military support And in exchange we will give you access to minerals So essentially a mineral for military support deal.
--:-- Noel King: We really have a lot to give. And all we ask is really for an opportunity to live in peace. What we have seen already happen is that through the Trump administration, They have negotiated essentially a principles framework for peace that gives U.S. access to minerals in both Rwanda and the DRC, a separate deal.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: And there will be a third deal that is a peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda. We've made a lot of progress with Rwanda and Congo fighting a very violent war, by the way. This is a game changer because DRC has a very, very developed mining sector.
--:-- Noel King: So 70% of the world's cobalt comes out of the Congo. They have fantastic lithium and nickel reserves. So it's a place where we see that we could actually get minerals for American offtake quite quickly, which makes it quite an interesting place for the administration to be targeting efforts.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: OK, and then finally, although this is happening in many more places, but Greenland. President Trump has talked about annexing Greenland. Greenland is a wonderful place. We need it for international security. Getting control of Greenland. The people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States of America.
--:-- Noel King: And initially, when he first took office, I think everyone was really confused. And then it almost immediately emerged again. This is about critical minerals. Greenland is a strategic area for two reasons. One is from a national security position. It's geographically well positioned.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: The second is a critical mineral story. But we have to acknowledge there's a lot of minerals in Greenland. However, it's not all easily or cost-effectively mined. And cost competitiveness is a critical determining factor in whether a mining company is obviously going to go extract it.
--:-- Noel King: So it's a long-term look. And obviously, Greenland and Denmark have said they are interested in private exploration and potentially sale of private land. However, they're not looking to be annexed. There are absolutely more diplomatic ways to pursue mining interests in Greenland.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: And we have to remember that it's not just about the U.S. and Greenland here. It's also about our European allies. We are not going to outcompete China alone. We are going to need our European allies. We're going to need allies in emerging markets. We're going to need Canada.
--:-- Noel King: So we're going to have to find a more diplomatic approach to pursuing our minerals security goals with Greenland. Then there are the parts of the world that are not nations. President Trump wants to issue licenses for deep sea mining. President Trump signing an executive order to fast track deep sea mining off the U.S. coast.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: China, however, is warning that this could break international law. Now major countries, including France, Germany and Chile, are calling for a pause on all deep sea mining operations in these common areas where mining exploration has already prompted protests.
--:-- Noel King: However, nations, including Norway, China and South Korea, are in favor of pushing ahead. Does anybody really own the ocean? You know, this is a great question, and it's probably going to be one of those interesting things that we watch play out in the next few years.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: Because there's a lot of mineral potential underwater, but there's a lot of challenges that we have. So one is licensing, right? We have now, we have our licensing system and the International Seabed Authority as their own licensing system.
--:-- Noel King: What happens when there's a dispute between these two frameworks? We're not really sure, number one. Number two, there's maritime security implications that we're not thinking about. We're going to have Chinese ships sitting between Mexico and Hawaii under the guise of deep sea mining without a clear way of how to monitor and manage that in an era where geopolitical tension is quite rife.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: And then the third thing, which we obviously hear about the most probably, is the environmental implications, because we actually don't know. It's not that we know it's good or we know it's bad. It's we haven't really done it at commercial scale. So there's still a lot of questions about how to manage that.
--:-- Noel King: Critical minerals are, in fact, critical. That's become clear throughout the course of this episode. They're critical for national security. They're critical for the economy. They're critical for our climate future.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: President Trump does seem to be taking this much more seriously. at least publicly than his predecessors. Is that fair to say? Has he seized on something here that maybe the American public was missing?
--:-- Noel King: So I want to actually go back to Trump's first administration. It was really 2017 where President Trump passed the first executive order mandating that we take a better look at our supply chains, understand our vulnerabilities and identify what we need to do.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: So this was started under Trump's first administration. Then we went to Biden and President Biden actually built on the efforts of President Trump. And the big thing that President Biden did was obviously the Inflation Reduction Act, which created a demand signal.
--:-- Noel King: It encouraged you to buy the EV. And by encouraging you to buy the EV, I encouraged large scale mineral investments because we need far more minerals for EVs in any other industry.
--:-- Gracelyn Baskarin: And then now we go to President Trump. And while certain things like the Inflation Reduction Act are clearly incongruent with the current administration, we see a further acceleration. But all to say that minerals are the most bipartisan issue in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Noel King: And we generally, with some changes, have seen administrations build on what the previous has done. Gracelyn Baskarin directs the Critical Mineral Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
--:-- Noel King: Next week, we're going to ask, what does it take to find critical minerals here in the United States? And could we possibly innovate our way out of a tricky situation?
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--:-- Noel King: Avishay Artsy produced today's show. It was produced in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team. Jolie Myers is our editor. Andrea Kristen's daughter and Patrick Boyd engineered. And Laura Bullard checked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.