WASHINGTON, D.C.—President Donald Trump unveiled deals worth more than $2 billion and funding announcements worth millions of dollars more aimed at bolstering America’s mineral supply chain during a roundtable at the State Department on Friday, alongside a group of prominent mining executives. The moves are designed, according to Trump and senior administration officials, to claw back control of critical mineral markets from China, whose mining dominance, experts say, threatens U.S. national security.
Trump said the Pentagon would invest $1.4 billion in a California battery maker involved in drones and munitions, and $400 million in an Australian firm that is developing the world’s first mine focused on scandium production, a material that is important for fighter jets. In addition, according to Trump, the administration is investing another $150 million in a magnetics firm and $85 million in a company that makes military-grade heat-resistant materials.
The president also announced his administration would grant $100 million to 14 mining schools and $81 million to 3 schools that will train geologists, metallurgists, and mining engineers in the United States, noting that China produces several times more experts in the field each year.
“In my second year, we’re achieving economic independence, ensuring that America is never again reliant on a hostile authoritarian nation for the resources our nation needs to dominate the future—and we have plenty of those resources,” Trump remarked to applause.
“Critical minerals are the raw materials of American strength and power everything from advanced weaponry to automobiles, and we want these essential products to be mined, refined, and made right here in the USA with American skill, American hands—we have better skill than anybody in the world,” he continued.
Trump blasted previous leaders who he said “let other countries” dominate mineral supply chains and shutter domestic mines. Former president Joe Biden, who prioritized climate and environmental causes, sought to end mining development across federal lands, blocking mines in Nevada, Arizona, Minnesota, and Alaska.
Critical minerals—like copper, lithium, cobalt, graphite, manganese, and rare earths—are required to manufacture energy technologies, semiconductors, and military-grade equipment, but are almost exclusively imported from China. The issue is particularly pertinent now: critical minerals are base components of weapons the United States has relied on during its military campaign in Iran and of technology, like power lines and batteries, that is vital for plans to expand the U.S. electric grid amid rapidly rising data center-driven demand.
It leaves the United States exposed, especially as the Chinese government hasn’t been afraid to weaponize its position for strategic geopolitical aims and coercion. China, for example, issued several export controls on minerals last year, immediately limiting how much supply American companies can import and triggering severe supply chain bottlenecks.
China ultimately suspended the controls until November 2026. But according to a recent International Energy Agency report, if the country fully unfreezes those measures, it could jeopardize a staggering $6.5 trillion in annual downstream manufacturing production outside China. In fact, the United States is more than 50 percent net import reliant on China for eight of the most important critical minerals, federal data shows—and China is a “major supplier” of 14 of the 33 minerals the United States is most dependent on.
“We have the State Department willing to utilize our unmatched global presence, our presence all over the world, to ensure that we’re working on this,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was with Trump at Friday’s State Department event.
The flurry of announcements Friday represent just the latest steps Trump has taken to reshore critical mineral production and refining, which has emerged as a top national security and energy priority of his administration.
Shortly after taking office last year, the president issued an executive order broadly directing his administration to prioritize mining projects, stating that such actions are imperative for American national security. “It is imperative for our national security that the United States take immediate action to facilitate domestic mineral production to the maximum possible extent,” the order stated.
Trump has also taken the unprecedented step of having the federal government take an equity stake in various critical mineral projects and companies—that includes a 10 percent stake in the nation’s largest planned lithium mine and a 15 percent stake in MP Materials, a large producer of rare earth minerals. In addition, Trump created a $12 billion critical mineral stockpile initiative and his White House permitting office has leveraged its authority to fast-track more than 20 mining projects nationwide over the last year and a half.
“Today is yet another example of how this administration is taking a comprehensive approach to mineral and energy security, taking on China’s mineral extortion from every possible angle and prioritizing America’s enormous but underdeveloped mining potential,” Rich Nolan, the president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.
Nolan cheered Trump’s actions on mining: “They’re leaving nothing unexplored when it comes to reversing our unnecessary and dangerous overreliance on mineral imports.”
Executives from mining companies Rio Tinto, Century Aluminum, MP Materials, American Ocean Minerals, and Resolution Copper joined Trump’s roundtable with other officials in attendance.
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