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Pini Althaus saw the signs. In 2023, he left the company he founded, USA Rare Earth, to develop critical minerals mining and processing projects in central Asia, after realizing that the U.S. will need all the international help it can get to end China\u2019s supply chain dominance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized we only have a handful of large critical minerals projects that were going into production between now and 2030,\u201d Althaus, chairman and CEO of Cove Capital, told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cI understood that we\u2019re going to have to supplement the United States critical minerals supply chain with materials coming in from our allied and friendly countries.\u201d<\/p>\n Over a series of decades, China built up its stranglehold on much of the world\u2019s critical minerals supply chains, including the 17 rare earths, used to make virtually all kinds of high-performance magnets and parts for vehicles, computers, power generation, military defense, and more. The rest of the world deferred to Beijing in exchange for cheap prices. <\/p>\n Amid an ongoing tariff war with the U.S.\u2014and a temporary truce\u2014the Trump administration is racing to build up domestic mining and processing capabilities, while also developing the global partnerships necessary to eventually undermine China, which controls 90% of the world\u2019s rare earths refining.<\/p>\n In October, Trump inked a deal with Australia for both countries to invest $3 billion in critical minerals projects by mid-2026. Australia is home to the largest publicly traded critical minerals miner in the world, Lynas Rare Earths. Trump then signed a series of bilateral critical minerals deals in eastern and southeastern Asia, including Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia. The U.S. also has new deals with Ukraine, Argentina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, and more.<\/p>\n Althaus is specifically developing mining and processing facilities for tungsten\u2014a heat-resistant metal used in electronics and military equipment\u2014and rare earths in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. He sees the most potential in former Soviet Union nations in central Asia.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Soviets spent many decades exploring and developing mines. Many of their databases have been left and are quite meticulous,\u201d Althaus said. \u201cThis gives companies looking to develop projects in central Asia a jumpstart compared to what would be here in the United States, where most of the opportunities are greenfield\u2014very early stages, very high risk, and very little appetite for investment.\u201d<\/p>\n In November, the Ex-Im Bank offered Cove Capital a $900 million financing letter of interest for the $1.1 billion Kazakh tungsten projects. A separate letter of interest was received from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.<\/p>\n Jeff Dickerson, principal advisor for Rystad Energy research firm, said only a long-term, coordinated effort\u2014essentially a \u201cwartime\u201d approach\u2014both domestically and with international partnerships can lead to success. But it cannot be done without new projects with foreign allies. \u201cThe challenge is that the U.S. doesn\u2019t have a strong pipeline of mature mineral projects that are shovel ready,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe cycle of China extracting concessions on the back of mineral geopolitics and weakening the U.S. strategic negotiating position will likely continue without a coordinated, long-term response during the current moment of heightened attention to critical minerals,\u201d Dickerson said, questioning whether the U.S. will maintain a concerted focus for years to come.<\/p>\n The Trump administration is increasingly making financial partnerships with critical minerals developers\u2014even becoming a majority shareholder of U.S. rare earths miner MP Materials\u2014and offering deals for floor-pricing mechanisms to offset China\u2019s recurring dumping practices that aim to eliminate competition.<\/p>\n A native Australian turned New Yorker, Althaus is, naturally, a big fan of this approach. Chinese price dumping has crippled global competition and scared away potential investors, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBy providing a price floor, it removes the question marks; it removes the instability; it removes the most significant risk in funding a project that\u2019s about to go into production,\u201d Althaus said. \u201cIt creates a predictability where you can take geology all the way through to profitability. I think there should be a global effort to create transparent markets and prices for the key critical minerals.\u201d<\/p>\n Critical minerals are increasingly included in U.S. negotiations for all foreign deals. In the tariff agreement with Indonesia, for instance, the Asian nation agreed to lift export bans on nickel. The White House leveraged its military support for Ukraine by demanding the rights to its critical minerals in return. And the recent U.S. bailout of Argentina included a partnership on critical minerals mining.<\/p>\n In addition to its strategic defense location, rare earths are even a reason Trump continues to show interest in annexing Greenland from Denmark.<\/p>\n Veteran geologist Greg Barnes, who founded the massive Tanbreez mining project, which remains in development, briefed Trump at the White House during his first presidential term. This year, Critical Metals acquired 92.5% ownership of the Tanbreez project.<\/p>\n Critical Metals CEO Tony Sage is keen to supply the U.S. with desired rare earths, and the company recently received a letter of intent for a $120 million Ex-Im Bank loan. The goal is to start construction by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an absolute need to make sure that more than 50% of the supply of these heavy rare earths come from outside of China\u2014mined and processed outside of China,\u201d Sage told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n Regardless of any long-shot annexation bids, Sage said Greenland can and should be a key ally to the U.S. for critical minerals. \u201cThey definitely don\u2019t want to be part of the U.S., but I think they\u2019ll be pro-U.S.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For his part, Althaus said he sees all the international deals as progress, and not as competition for his Cove Capital.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a positive, and I think we\u2019ll start to see a lot more happen in the coming months in terms of the U.S. and collaboration with other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #International #deals #race #Chinas #hold #critical #minerals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pini Althaus saw the signs. In… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[1950,1951,1466,162,566,1952,1737,1949],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\nNew emphasis<\/h2>\n