The 21st century gold are not precious metals of past times, but rare earths. That compendium of mineral resources among which is the scandio, the ititrium or the so -called lantanids, with the neodymium, the disposium and the holm at the head, to which others are added, metallic, which are essential for the manufacture of the high -end integrated circuits demanded by the global technological career. According to experts, these minerals will lead to the domain of artificial intelligence (AI), for which the new American administration is willing to put the international order up.
The conquest of rare earth has been triggered. No truce and without apparent rules. As if the wild and distant American west was. The new White House tenant proclaims it to the four winds, in the heat of the growing demand for critical minerals that claims the technological sector. At any price. Even at the expense of Denmark, he is forced to negotiate a price for Greenland, territory that custody 43 of the 50 minerals considered critical by the US government and that has the largest deposits of rare earths outside China. Crucial also for arms development and energy transition.
Although Donald Trump is also interested in the geostrategic enclave of the Danish autonomous region to control Arctic routes and, of course, his coastal oil bags that, according to the US Geological Service, house 3% of the certified reserves of the entire planet, capable of producing, if the Nuuk government estimated it, up to 52,000 million barrels. And what is worse. Copenhagen’s bad dream could actually become. Because on March 11 – next Tuesday – Groenlandia has summoned appointment with the polls and independence of Denmark is campaigning, fueled by the Republican leader.
In parallel, the rare earths have been in the focus of tension between Trump and President Ukraine Volodimir Zelenski, as if it were a kind of Cambalache: peace for minerals. Washington has not only stoned military, logistical and financial support from the Biden Administration to kyiv, but has positioned itself from the Kremlin side and uses Vladimir Putin’s arguments to annul diplomats involved.
With an apparent predisposition to success. Because Zelenski has noticed that he cannot “sell the state of Ukraine”, to say that the contact round with Trump “has not been serious” and emphasize until the anger that the 67 billion dollars in arms and the 31,500 million in direct financial injections of the US are far from the invoice that claims the oval office, to leave a window open to a future agreement to continue receiving the future agreement to continue receiving Patriot and other weapons of the American arsenal.
Greenland and Ukraine: promised lands
Both latitudes offer valuable deposits. Greenland has open about 170 mineral deposits under contracts with companies that have been drilling their subsoil for a long decade. Although the four fifths of the immense island are still covered with ice. But climate change begins to make a dent and discover new soils ready to be industrially explored. On the other hand, Ukraine sees in the American bearer’s check an endorsement for reconstruction, in case the fire fruit and can assume the conditions imposed by the US. Especially if Europe puts aside.
However, behind this tsunami Geopolitical with epicenter in Washington underlies a clear mercantilist component. According to Boston Consulting Group (BCG) the demand for these mineral raw materials from the technological sector is overwhelming. So much so that their experts anticipate that they have not yet been found around fifth of rare earths that the digital industry will need in 2035, which is why “billions of dollars are being invested in finding new deposits.”
In addition to environmental, economic and socio-labor factors. Because the ongoing extractions reveal that the quality of the mineral – that is, the amount of valuable metal by rock samples – is getting worse, which forces to drill in a deeper way and to expand official licenses to mining companies, which strive to reduce costs and maintain their profit margins. The union protests have rooted in the middle of a global temptation to establish protectionist measures that have forced the closure of facilities in Chile, Panama or Serbia and several Asian nations.
“The companies in this segment are desperate to acquire new technologies with which to be able to boost their productions,” admits to The Economist Kaz Minerals chief Andrew Southam, a copper mining Fracking by the companies of his negotiated.
All for establishing sufficient guarantees of supply of materials such as lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel to produce vehicles and metal minerals with which to satisfy orders to modernize infrastructure, supply the chip industry or assemble batteries to guarantee electrical mobility. The UN has issued an eloquent radiography of its activity: the extraction of these resources has shot 400% since 1970 and it is expected to grow 60% in 2060.
A succulent cake, ready to drink
But how much money this business mobilizes? And, above all, what countries and companies lead this kind of new industrial crusade? The financial consultant MMR values at almost 6,000 million dollars – in concrete, 5,960 – the world revenues in the rare earth market, although with forecasts of far as this figure, 2023, at the end of the decade, with rebounds of 12.4% per year, until reaching 13,520 million in 2030, a amount similar to the one that Vantage Market Research, signature of market probes, It continues that same progression and anticipates that it will monopolize 15.8 billion in 2032.
“Until their new uses were discovered, rare earth metals have been relatively cheap,” they say in MMR. However, “its substantial price increase in the last five years has created gaps between supply and demand and disruptions in value chains due to the intense succession of orders from technological industries, renewable energy and defense and security energy.” Although, until now, “volatility has prevailed” for fluctuations in raw material contributions, productive costs and maritime transport.
The two great miners in the world, BHP and Río Tinto are engaged in reconversion of their productive chains. Specifically, testing leaching mechanisms or chemical process to extract higher doses of metals in mineral cavities, an easy task because these materials are found in nature in different forms and states, from oxides, to sulphides, so sometimes the mines proliferate the open sky.
McKinsey admits that the rare earth business, to the frantic rhythm that claims the current world demand, will generate between 400 and 600 megatons (MT) additional from CO2 to the atmosphere in 2030, which will leave an almost indelible carbon footprint to reach the zero net emissions in the production processes of as important industries as technological, transport or energy. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has claimed for years an international consensus to, among other objectives, establish responsible mining standards and promote ESG capitals. Although from the arrival of the Trump administration there seems to have broken an illustrative silence into the entity that manages the Cumbres de Davos.
The Chinese-Eeuu competitive rivalry
China is the largest producer of rare earth, according to the US Geological Service (USGS) where it is stated that, in 2023, the 350,000 metric tons were reached in front of 190,000 in 2018. The Asian giant extracted 240,000 tons, although it is concentrated in its lighter, especially magnetic materials, such as neodymium and prose Northern Rare Earth High Tech as its flagship and the largest emporium in the world of the world.
Far, with 43,000 metric tons, it follows USA, which almost exclusively obtained from the Mountain Pass mine in California, owned by MP Materials, and Myanmar, which registered 38,000 tons. According to the International Energy Agency (AIE), since 2015 the former Burma has gone from showing a global fee from 0.2% to 14%.
Australia, Thailand, India, Russia, Madagascar, Vietnam and Brazil make up the Top-Ten. The American business army, which has been especially protected with subsidies by the Biden Democratic government and can now enjoy the protection, for National Security, of Trump is champion of MP Materials, Energy Fuels and Niocorp Developments, the three largest by stock capitalization.
In this geostrategic dispute the figure of the main private armed arm of the world breaks. Blackrock has just acquired 43 ports of CK Hutchison, the Port Emporio of Hong-Kong and headquarters in the Cayman Islands directed by the Chinese Milmillonario Li Ka-Shing, including those of Cristóbal, in the Atlantic, and Balboa, in the Pacific that control the two ends of the maritime traffic of the Panama Canal Trump has shown his extraterritorial desires.
The transcendence of this movement is not only highlighted by international observers, who see in this maneuver a support of the greatest fund manager to AMERICA First Trumpist, but is appreciated that his own hierarchy, Larry Fink personally telephoned the US president to close the operation of 19,000 million dollars. Trump praised “the recovery” of this transoceanic catwalk through which 5% of global maritime transportation, reports Bloomberg. Trump campaigned as a “strategic priority” of the US that the Centenary Panamanian Canal will be under the management of the White House and the convenience of reducing “all commercial and logistics influence” of China in Latin American ports.
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