Highlights

• The Trump administration's Project Vault will establish a $12 billion shared stockpile of critical minerals—including rare earths, gallium, and cobalt—to protect U.S. manufacturers from supply disruptions and price shocks tied to China.
• The initiative is backed by a $10 billion Export-Import Bank loan and $1.67 billion in private capital.
• Major firms like GM, Boeing, and Google are involved, with commodity traders managing procurement and storage.
• Project Vault provides strategic shock absorption and fills a gap left by the military-focused National Defense Stockpile.
• It delays rather than solves scarcity, buying time for Western supply chains to develop independent mining and processing capacity.

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The Trump administration wants to spend $12 billion to build a shared stockpile of critical minerals—rare earths, gallium, cobalt, and others—so U.S. manufacturers are less vulnerable to sudden shortages or price spikes, especially those tied to China. Called Project Vault, the plan mirrors the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but for materials used in cars, electronics, energy systems, and jet engines. Instead of each company stockpiling on its own, firms would share inventory and costs, reducing panic during supply disruptions.

Inside the Machinery, Not Just the Headline

As reported (opens in a new tab) by Bloomberg, Project Vault would combine a $10 billion Export-Import Bank loan with $1.67 billion in private capital, supported by long-term purchase commitments from major manufacturers such as GM, Boeing, Stellantis, Corning, and Google. Commodity traders, including Traxys and Mercuria, would handle procurement and storage.

This is not a state takeover. It is structured risk pooling: inventory risk moves from individual corporate balance sheets into a credit-backed, shared facility—standard logic in commodity finance, scaled up by government backing.

Where the Case Is Strong

The diagnosis is correct. China’s export controls on gallium, germanium, and related materials exposed how thin Western buffers really are. History supports the concern: nickel’s price shock after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a textbook example of how geopolitical events can destabilize industrial inputs overnight.

It is also accurate that the U.S. National Defense Stockpile mainly serves military needs. Civilian manufacturers—from autos to semiconductors—have had no equivalent safety net. Project Vault addresses a real structural gap.

Where Tensions and Contradictions Appear

Supportive as this is to Western resilience, it comes with trade-offs. Stockpiles do not create supply; they only delay scarcity. Without parallel acceleration of mining, separation, and magnet manufacturing, the U.S. still draws down material ultimately sourced or processed abroad—often in China.

There is also a philosophical tension: stabilizing prices for buyers can dampen price signals that would otherwise incentivize new Western supply. In extreme cases, a stockpile can mask shortages rather than solve them. And fixed-price repurchase commitments work—until inventories are exhausted. At that point, geology and processing capacity, not financial engineering, decide outcomes.

Why This Matters for the Rare Earth Chain

Project Vault is best understood as strategic shock absorption, not industrial self-sufficiency. It buys time for allied supply chains to mature. For investors, that distinction matters. The real long-term value still lies in projects that move from ore to oxide to metal to magnet—at scale, outside China.

Source: Bloomberg, Feb. 2 2026; administration of President Donald Trump.