OPINION:
President Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Gyeongju, South Korea. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are also expected to meet with their counterparts.
These will be some of the most important meetings of Mr. Trump’s second term in office. The Trump administration should equip the president with the strongest negotiating hand possible by providing a comprehensive, whole-of-government national critical minerals strategy.
We are retired two-star military leaders who dedicated our adult lives to defending our homeland, and we can tell you without a doubt that critical minerals are not just an economic or environmental issue but also a national security crisis.
For example, the critical mineral antimony is especially important to our warfighters. It is used in every bullet, every pair of night-vision goggles and in the starter battery of everything that floats, flies or drives, from every howitzer to every stealth bomber. Without it, our military would shut down. Yet right now, China controls nearly half of the world’s antimony supply and most of its processing.
Until a year ago, the United States and its allies relied on China for antimony. However, after Mr. Trump’s reelection, China cut off America and drove up our prices, forcing us to scramble for other overseas suppliers. It is only a matter of time before China runs the same playbook with other critical minerals. Through its imperialistic Belt and Road Initiative, China controls 70% of the world’s rare earth elements production. In the critical minerals category, it controls two-thirds of the world’s lithium and three-quarters of the world’s cobalt.
However, these numbers understate China’s dominance. China controls a significantly greater share of critical mineral processing and refining. Without processing ability, none of the minerals in the world will be of any use. By cornering the market on mineral processing, China can hold the rest of the world hostage.
Fortunately, the Trump administration is aware of this problem. It has been taking action to the point that CNN even suggested, earlier this year, that the president was “obsessed” with critical minerals. In January, the Interior Department finally approved the application to reopen America’s only antimony mine in central Idaho. This is excellent news, but it is not enough to ensure America’s antimony independence.
Getting the mine up and running after 20 years of closure will take time. However, even if the Idaho mine were to switch back on at full capacity tomorrow, we wouldn’t be able to process and purify the antimony it produces. As a result, American antimony would be sent to China for processing and then returned at a higher price. As America begins to mine again, we also need to process again to take complete control of the supply chain.
America needs a comprehensive, whole-of-government national critical mineral strategy that includes the expedited approval of regulatory permits for mining projects, such as construction permits and operating permits. The administration has largely done this already through the national energy emergency executive order, but it must also include the same regulatory relief for mineral processing facilities.
The second Trump administration has been the most aggressive presidential administration on the issue of trade in decades, if not ever. The administration should ensure robust anti-dumping rules to prevent China from bankrupting our mining companies and mineral processors.
Securing America’s critical mineral independence will take time. Until then, if we cannot reshore a mineral, we should shore it by friendship. Mr. Trump should coordinate an international antimony supply and processing capacity with our allies until we can become a net mineral exporter. We should never depend on an adversary for something so basic and necessary as antimony to make bullets. These minerals ensure our national security and a thriving economy and, with that, our leadership on the world stage.
Even when America does get back to mining and processing antimony as we did during World War II, we would still face the threat that China would attempt to bankrupt our companies. China has repeatedly employed the same playbook in the U.S. and other countries worldwide: subsidizing its own products to drive prices below cost for its competitors and then flooding the market with its cheap commodities. The result is that their competitors, our domestic manufacturers, go bankrupt, allowing China to dominate the market thoroughly. Any national critical minerals strategy needs to prepare for this and ensure that China doesn’t do to our miners and manufacturers what they did to our steelworkers.
Fortunately, Mr. Bessent recently said the administration will protect against Chinese dumping by instituting price floors to keep our most important institutions in operation. As the secretary said concerning rare earths, “Either we have to be self-sufficient, or we have to be sufficient with our allies.”
Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Xi Jinping is their first since 2019, and it could have implications for the next four years and beyond. We urge the president to continue his pressure campaign for fair trade while ensuring America and our allies can deliver the minerals we need for a modern economy and a robust military. This is our moment to declare critical mineral independence.
• Maj. Gen. William “Bill” Crane (retired) is a former adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard. Rear Adm. Peter Brown of the U.S. Coast Guard (retired) is a former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to President Trump. They serve as chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Responsible Battery Coalition’s Critical Minerals Leadership Roundtable.
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