Greenland's Elements & Minerals won't Solve America's Rare Earth Problem-When will POTUS Wake Up?

Highlights

• Greenland's rare earth reserves represent a potential strategic lever for the United States in challenging China's global resource dominance.
• Despite vast mineral deposits, significant challenges remain in processing and refining rare earth elements beyond raw material extraction.
• U.S. efforts to secure rare earth supply chains must address complex technological, environmental, and political barriers.

In OilPrice.com, Sohrab Darabshaw examines (opens in a new tab) Greenland’s vast rare earth deposits as a potential geopolitical lever for the United States in its ongoing rivalry with China. The article outlines U.S. interests in acquiring Greenland, which houses one of the world's richest rare earth reserves, including the Kvanefjeld deposit, essential for technologies like EV batteries, defense systems, and wind turbines. The article argues that leveraging Greenland's resources could help the U.S. reduce its dependency on China, which dominates 70% of rare earth production and 90% of processing globally.

Misses Key Point?

Rare Earth Exchanges points out critical flaws in the author’s assumptions. Even if Greenland became part of the U.S., it would not solve the downstream processing bottleneck, as the U.S. lacks sufficient capacity to refine rare earths. China’s state-sponsored subsidies, economies of scale, and export bans on extraction technologies further cement its dominance. While Greenland’s resources may improve U.S. raw material access, without addressing processing, refining, and downstream production, Chinese leverage remains intact.

What the article misses is a deeper exploration of viable pathways for breaking China’s monopoly, such as international collaboration to build processing facilities, the necessary massive investment in alternative processing and production and the position to control production of advance technologies—plus importantly,  fostering a transparent pricing market for rare earths. It also underestimates the environmental and political challenges Greenland mining could face.

While the U.S. aims to secure supply chains, this strategy risks oversimplifying a multifaceted problem and ignores the complexity of decoupling from China's entrenched rare earth ecosystem.