Highlights
- Trump’s executive order creates the National Energy Dominance Council to accelerate domestic mineral production and reduce dependence on geopolitical rivals like China.
- The order prioritizes mining on federal lands, expedites permits, and provides government-backed financing to strengthen domestic mineral supply chains.
- Despite aggressive measures, the strategy may fall short without comprehensive midstream and downstream processing infrastructure to compete with China’s global mineral market dominance.
President Trump’s latest executive order, Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, reads like a declaration of war on bureaucratic inertia. It casts the United States as a sleeping giant atop untapped mineral wealth—held back not by geology, but by federal red tape. At its heart, the order is a bold attempt to reclaim America’s mineral independence, reduce reliance on geopolitical rivals like China, and refashion the nation’s role in the 21st-century tech and defense economy. Through the creation of the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) and aggressive use of the Defense Production Act (DPA), Trump seeks to jolt the system awake by fast-tracking permits, prioritizing extraction on federal lands, and pairing private capital with mining projects deemed vital to national security.
In theory, this is a full-spectrum strategy—from ore to advanced components like semiconductors and magnets. In practice, it may be a bit of patriotic overreach without the scaffolding needed to build a resilient industrial ecosystem. We’ll take
The executive order touches all the right nerves: it demands speed from regulatory agencies, opens up dormant federal lands, and gives sweeping power to defense and economic agencies to pour capital into mineral projects. It even orders the Export-Import Bank and Small Business Administration into the fray, ensuring small miners aren’t left behind. This certainly raises hopes.
Yet, for all its urgency, the order stumbles where it matters most. The midstream and downstream bottlenecks—and even conversion of raw product to ores, especially when ores become refined materials, and refined materials become usable parts like magnets, batteries, and motors—are given lip service but no clear path forward. China still controls over 90% of global rare earth processing and component manufacturing, and this order offers little that directly addresses this chokehold. Yes, there will be prioritized projects, and newfound attention in the incredibly important sector called critical minerals and rare earths certainly is about time.
Waiving permitting delays is a start, but without processing capacity on U.S. soil—or with very close allies nearby– we risk digging up raw materials only to ship them abroad—perhaps even to China—for finishing. Rare earths are more like refining petroleum than traditional mining, and it’s not clear if that has settled into the collective consciousness that is DC today.
It’s a brave move in the right direction, but unless the White House backs it up with industrial-scale investment (or backs major private equity to take long-view investment), training, environmental innovation, and a strategic counter (via industrial policy) to Chinese retaliation, this “America First” mineral doctrine may end up being little more than an extraction boom with no processor to feed.
We’ll do our best to encourage President Trump to ensure the resilience job is finished.
We follow up with a Q&A:
What is the National Energy Dominance Council?
The executive order defines key terms related to mineral production, including minerals themselves, processed minerals, and derivative products. It broadens the definition of critical minerals to include uranium, copper, potash, gold, and any other materials deemed necessary by the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC). The order prioritizes the mining, processing, refining, and smelting of these materials, along with the production of processed critical minerals used in essential technologies such as semiconductors, batteries, electric vehicles, and advanced defense systems.
How about the transparency dashboard?
A major component of the order is the designation of “Priority Projects.” Federal agencies responsible for mineral production permits must, within ten days, submit a list of all pending applications to the NEDC. The goal is to expedite approvals, ensuring that crucial mining and mineral processing projects move forward swiftly. Additionally, the order mandates that the Permitting Council incorporates select mineral projects into its transparency dashboard, allowing for better oversight and accelerated processing. Recognizing the legal complexities surrounding mining regulations, the order calls for a review of the Mining Act of 1872. The NEDC and the Office of Legislative Affairs are tasked with providing recommendations to Congress to clarify policies on waste rock disposal, tailings management, and other critical operational aspects of mineral extraction.
How about financing? What is the National Security Capital Forum?
Land use policy is another key focus. Within ten days, the Secretary of the Interior must identify federal lands that contain mineral deposits. These lands are to be prioritized for mineral production and mining-related purposes. Further, agencies such as the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and Department of Agriculture must identify suitable federal lands for private mining operations. The order encourages leasing arrangements that facilitate the rapid development of mineral extraction sites, leveraging both new and existing structures to support private enterprise. To stimulate private investment in mineral production, the order empowers the Secretary of Defense to use the National Security Capital Forum to connect private investors with viable projects. The executive order waives specific provisions of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to enable rapid allocation of resources toward domestic mineral supply chains. The Secretary of Defense, in collaboration with the Department of Energy and the NEDC, is authorized to use DPA authorities to support mineral production initiatives.
The DoD and Export-Import Bank emerge as key. The order also assigns a significant role to the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The CEO of the DFC is delegated presidential authority under the DPA to issue loans and guarantees supporting domestic mineral projects. A dedicated fund for mineral investment, managed in conjunction with the Department of Defense, is to be established to accelerate production further. The Export-Import Bank is also directed to develop financing strategies to secure raw mineral feedstock and strengthen domestic mineral supply chains. In addition to financial backing, the order includes provisions for small businesses engaged in mineral production. The Small Business Administration is tasked with recommending legislation and implementing regulations to enhance private-public capital activities, ensuring that small businesses can access necessary funding and support.
An aggressive push or transformative legal move?
The order includes a general provisions section clarifying that it does not override existing laws or create legal rights enforceable against the government. It emphasizes that the implementation of these measures must align with applicable laws and available appropriations. Of course, this raises issues given how complex the underlying labyrinths of laws and rules are and how they intertwine and overlap.
Overall, this executive order represents an aggressive push to revitalize American mineral production by fast-tracking permits, opening federal lands for mining, incentivizing investment, and leveraging government resources to strengthen domestic supply chains. The order seeks to fortify national security and economic stability while driving technological advancement in key industries by reducing dependence on foreign minerals, particularly from adversarial nations.
What do we need to look out for?
While President Trump’s executive order marks a bold push to reigniteAmerica’s domestic mineral production, it may still fall short of catching China, whose dominance in the global critical minerals market is not built on raw resource availability alone but on decades of strategic investment in processing, manufacturing, and pricing power. The creation of the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), along with a flurry of fast-track permitting, leasing of federal lands, and government-backed financing, signals a high-speed response to a long-standing vulnerability; for this, Trump must be given some credit.
However, China controls more than 90% of global rare earths processing and the manufacturing of key components like permanent magnets, battery materials, and semiconductors—all downstream assets the U.S. lacks at the industrial scale. The executive order’s emphasis on mining and upstream extraction may flood the market with ore. Still, without sufficient midstream and downstream infrastructure, these materials will either pile up or be exported—ironically, perhaps even to China for finishing. Worse, Beijing can leverage its monopoly to flood markets with cheap supply, undercutting U.S. producers before they ever reach profitability. Backed by powerful state-controlled conglomerates, subsidies from the Chinese treasury, and long-term offtake deals across Africa and South America, China holds strategic advantages that permitting speed and financing alone won’t neutralize. Unless the U.S. builds a fully integrated industrial base—processing plants, component factories, trained labor, and advanced tech—Trump’s order, while aggressive, may end up as an upstream surge without a value-added future, leaving America still trailing in the mineral arms race. Only time, hopefully, a compelling vision, strategy, and execution will tell.
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