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United States Mining

Trump’s push to save the fading coal industry gets a warm embrace in West Virginia – by Leah Willingham and John Raby (Associated Press – April 27, 2025)

https://apnews.com/

FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. (AP) — The winner of this year’s West Virginia Coal Festival teen beauty pageant walks among the ruins of a community abandoned 70 years ago and imagines the rusted remains of coal tipples and processing plants coming back to life.

Ava Johnson knows West Virginia coal will not ever be what it once was. But as she makes her way along overgrown railroad tracks near the abandoned Kay Moor mine in the New River Gorge National Park looking for spikes for her collection, the 16-year-old history buff says she has heard people talking with hope about the future of an industry that has brought good-paying jobs to her state for the better part of two centuries.

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The sinister history of America’s ‘uranium gold rush’ – by Erin Blakemore (National Geographic – July 12, 2024)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/

The success of the Manhattan Project sent demand for uranium skyrocketing, and enterprising prospectors went out West in search of an overnight fortune. But many were exposed to lethal radiation in the mines.

Armed with picks and shovels, the prospectors turned to the American West intent on finding deposits of the mineral that would make their fortunes. Their pursuit of wealth led to vast riches—and left ghost towns in its wake.

But the year wasn’t 1849, and the miners weren’t in search of gold. Instead, it was the 1950s, and they carried Geiger counters along with their shovels. They were part of the United States’ last big mineral rush—a forgotten race to find uranium deposits at the dawn of the nuclear age.

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Op-Ed: A credible strategy emerging to secure US critical supply chains – by Dominic Raab (Mining.com – April 24, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Dominic Raab is head of global affairs at Appian Capital, and former UK deputy prime minister and foreign secretary.

Amidst the polarized debate over the new US Administration’s trade policy, President Trump has taken a series of measures – from permitting reform to the nascent peace plan for Ukraine – demonstrating a concerted, new, strategic commitment to securing critical minerals supply chains.

The bedrock of the modern digital economy, from EV cars and smartphones to F-35 fighter aircraft, demand for critical minerals has doubled, creating a $320 billion market, and is set to double again by 2030. So too, today’s cutting-edge military hardware, on which our national security rests, depends on rare earths – from drones to submarines.

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Trump aims to fight China’s control of minerals by investing in miners – by Spencer Kimball (CNBC.com – April 24, 2025)

https://www.cnbc.com/

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Trump administration is considering investing in companies that mine and process critical minerals in an effort to end U.S. dependence on imports from countries including China, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said this week.

“We should be taking some of our balance sheet and making investments,” Burgum said late Wednesday at a conference organized by the Hamm Institute for American Energy. The U.S. may need to make an “equity investment in each of these companies that’s taking on China in critical minerals,” he said.

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Trump Fast-Tracks 10 Mineral Projects: Perpetua’s Stibnite Gold to Boost U.S. Antimony – by Saptakee S (Carbon Credits – April 22, 2025)

https://carboncredits.com/

The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) took a major step to speed up approvals for domestic mineral production. In response to President Trump’s executive order, Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, the Council named 10 mining projects that will now benefit from a faster, more transparent federal permitting process.

These projects, targeting minerals like copper, antimony, lithium, and potash, have been granted FAST-41 status. This designation falls under a 2015 federal initiative that streamlines permitting for major infrastructure projects. The White House confirmed more projects will be added soon.

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Exclusive-Trump supporter Prince reaches deal with Congo to help secure mineral wealth – by Jessica Donati and Sonia Rolley (Reuters – April 17, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Prominent Trump supporter Erik Prince has agreed to help Democratic Republic of Congo secure and tax its vast mineral wealth, according to two sources close to the private security executive, a Congolese government official and two diplomats.

The agreement, aimed at reaping more revenue from an industry marred by smuggling and corruption, was reached before Rwanda-backed M23 rebels launched a major offensive in January that has seen them seize eastern Congo’s two largest cities.

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Trump recognizes that domestic mining is a national security issue – by Sara Vakhshouri (The Hill – April 12, 2025)

https://thehill.com/

President Trump’s executive order to increase domestic critical mineral production has been interpreted as a pro-industry move or a nod to traditional energy sectors. It is both — but more importantly, it is a long overdue national security play.

In the modern geopolitical chess game, America’s mineral vulnerability is not just an economic liability but a strategic one. The order activates the Defense Production Act to boost domestic mining and processing of minerals like lithium, rare earths, nickel, cobalt, copper and uranium.

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China Halts Critical Exports as Trade War Intensifies – by Keith Bradsher (New York Times – April 13, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Beijing has suspended exports of certain rare earth minerals and magnets that are crucial for the world’s car, semiconductor and aerospace industries.

China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.

Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.

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Just How Badly Does Donald Trump Want Access to Critical Minerals? – by Nicolas Niarchos (New Yorker – April 15, 2025)

https://www.newyorker.com/

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has some of the largest deposits on Earth. Its President wants to sell them—and win a war.

On a recent episode of Fox News’ “Special Report,” the host, Bret Baier, turned his attention to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country that doesn’t frequently make headlines in the United States. Using a map of the country, which is two-thirds the size of Western Europe, to educate his viewers, Baier began by outlining the regional conflicts in which the D.R.C. has been engaged, dating back to the refugee crises triggered by the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

He added that “Congo is considered the world’s richest country in terms of natural resources,” containing untapped supplies worth “an estimated twenty-four trillion dollars, with a ‘T.’ ” Those resources include gold, diamonds, and so-called critical metals, such as cobalt and lithium, which are used in rechargeable batteries.

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Rio Tinto hopes Trump will clear path for Resolution copper project – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 9, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto is optimistic that US President Donald Trump will expedite the final permits approval for its long-delayed Resolution copper project in Arizona. Speaking at the CRU World Copper Conference in Santiago, Rio Tinto’s copper chief executive Katie Jackson said growing US interest in strengthening the copper supply chain could help advance the stalled mine.

“We hope that will be part of getting projects like Resolution to move because it has historically been a long process,” she told attendees. The mining giant has spent more than a decade navigating a complex permitting process.

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America Together, or America Alone? A mining to metals viewpoint – by Lyle Trytten (The Oregon Group – April 6, 2025)

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Lyle Trytten (The Nickel Nerd) has 30 years of experience in the base metals and fertilizer industries, working on projects across multiple continents, technologies, and roles, from R&D and engineering to commercialization and operations.

This is an article that I – a Canadian – never thought I would have to write, but these are strange times. With the capricious nature of the current US administration – breaching signed treaties and contracts, threatening and imposing tariffs that change every week, annexation threats, and dramatic escalation in the restrictions and burdens placed on immigrants and visa holders – one country is trying to radically reshape the integrated nature of the global economy.

Is re-shoring entire manufacturing chains feasible or desirable?

The USA has been a manufacturing and innovation powerhouse for more than a century. The availability of vast amounts of resources – land, energy, minerals, and hard-working people from across the world – has created a country that leads the world in many important areas.

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Column: China primes rare earths weapon as trade war escalates – by Andy Home (Reuters – April 10, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

As U.S. President Donald Trump turns up the tariff heat on China, Beijing is targeting ever more of the United States’ critical material supply chains.

Weird and wonderful metals such as antimony, gallium and germanium have already been sucked into the escalating trade war with China restricting exports and banning sales to the United States. Beijing has just raised the mineral threat another level by adding seven rare earths to its dual-use list of restricted exports.

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Trump order seeks to tap coal power in quest to dominate AI – by Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg News – April 8, 2025)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

President Donald Trump is moving to expand the mining and use of coal inside the US, a bid to power the boom in energy-hungry data centers while seeking to revive a declining US fossil fuel industry. In an executive order Trump is set to sign Tuesday afternoon, the president will direct a number of steps by the federal government meant to reinvigorate coal said a senior White House official.

The actions including emphasizing the US is back in the business of selling coal mining rights on federal land and ordering the rock be designated as a critical mineral. Other steps include accelerating the export of US coal and related technologies.

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Lakota artist smudges the former gold mine inside the Black Hills – by Graham Lee Brewer (Toronto Star/Associated Press – April 5, 2025)

https://www.thestar.com/

When Lakota artist Marty Two Bulls Jr. looks at the Black Hills of South Dakota, he doesn’t just see its natural beauty. He also sees a scar cut deep into the heart of the universe.

The mountain range is central to the origin story of several tribal nations, including his, and it has become an international symbol of the ongoing struggle for Indigenous land rights and the destruction of sacred sites. To the Lakota, Mount Rushmore is the most visible scar on the mountains. The former gold mine beneath is another, and that’s what motivated Two Bulls to use his performance art to cleanse it.

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China deploys rare earths as weapon in trade war with Trump (Bloomberg News – April 7, 2025)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

China has expanded its use of critical minerals as a trade weapon with curbs on exports of rare earths, threatening to shake-up the global supply of key materials used widely in high-tech manufacturing from electric vehicles to weaponry.

As part of its retaliation to President Donald Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on imported Chinese goods, Beijing said Friday it will tighten controls on exports of seven types of rare earths. The country is by far the world’s biggest supplier of the minerals, which comprise 17 elements in the periodic table.

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