Soon after the start of Trump’s second term, the pitfalls of the US’ reliance on China’s rare earths and other critical minerals were laid bare. The trade war between the two countries last year further underscored the precarity of the US’ position, when China, where roughly 70% of global rare earths are mined and around 90% is processed, restricted the US’ access to its supply and related technologies.

While tensions have since died down, Trump’s efforts to secure domestic supply chains have only multiplied. His two main strategic levers? Onshoring and friendshoring.

In this episode, we discuss how effective these strategies have been in countering China’s mineral dominance, with insights from the US Geological Survey’s mineral resources program coordinator Colin Williams, Graphite One’s senior vice president of mining Mike Schaffner and GlobalData senior mining analyst Gayathri Siripurapu.

Candiece Cyrus is the host of this episode and editor of GlobalData's mining titles.

Jackie Park is the producer of this episode.

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(0:00) Intro

(1:19) Trump’s onshoring strategy

(1:52) Graphite One on permitting reforms

(2:58) Expanding federal ownership of domestic projects

(3:57) USGS on processing and refining

(5:53) Trump’s friendshoring strategy

(7:34) Analysis of friendshoring impact

(9:07) Onshoring vs friendshoring