PIIE Predicts Trump Critical-Minerals Strategy Will Fail-Great Powers Era 2.0 Complicates the History

Highlights

• PIIE economist Hufbauer invokes Vernon's 'obsolescing bargain' to predict Trump's foreign critical minerals deals will eventually unravel as host nations reassert control.
• Rare Earth Exchanges argues Great Powers Era 2.0 reframes the contest as ecosystem versus ecosystem, with China's integrated supply chain forcing rival nations to offer capital, markets, and security for supply access.
• China's 2025 export controls could expose $6.5 trillion in annual downstream production outside China, making diversification a strategic imperative beyond simple economics.
• Congo, Kenya, and Malaysia illustrate how resource-rich nations now seek competing sources of capital and geopolitical leverage, complicating simple resource nationalism narratives.
• Hufbauer's analysis contains a factual error: Allende died at La Moneda during Chile's 1973 coup, not 'in prison,' undermining confidence in his historical framing.