Today, Explained - The minerals that rule our world

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

The race to control critical mineral deposits has become a major driver of US foreign policy -- and is redrawing global alliances. This episode was made in partnership with Vox’s Future Perfect team. It was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Mining for chromite at the Mughulkhil mine in Logar Province, Afghanistan. Photo by MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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President Trump's obsession with critical minerals. We believe it's possible to extract enormous amounts of critical minerals and rare earths, which you know we need for technology and high technology in the process. In South Africa, Ukraine, China, Greenland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the ocean. What exactly is going on right now? That's coming up on Today Explained. The world is moving fast. Your business needs to move faster.

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My name is Ernest Scheider. I'm a journalist at Reuters where I write about critical minerals. I'm also the author of a book called The War Below, Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives. All right, Ernest, we promised the people we'd explain what is going on with the president and his fixation on critical minerals. Go ahead. Well, I think there's a realization by President Trump and those in his orbit that the United States produces

relatively few of these critical minerals within its own borders, and that countries like China and others have large reserves and produce and process a lot of them. And so as our world becomes increasingly electrified, we're gonna need a lot more of these critical minerals, not just in the United States, but globally. And so there's definitely a realization

that we need to have more of these, not just for things like laptops and cell phones and electric vehicles, but also for key pieces of equipment used by the military, fighter jets, submarines, laser guided missiles, et cetera. They're all made with critical minerals. Some of them very niche and specific critical minerals, but the United States produces and processes very few of these today.

So that's part of the reason why you're seeing the administration in Washington and especially President Trump make a big push for new fresh supplies. All right, so President Trump, as he sometimes does, has become obsessed with something, but it's something, as you're telling us, it's something quite important.

What are critical minerals, exactly? So when we think, Noel, about the periodic table of the elements, and stay with me here, don't fall asleep. Sure. There's a whole host of items on that the periodic table of the elements. And so copper might be the one that people might know the most about.

It's used in wiring, it's used in motors and many other electronics. Lithium is used in lithium ion batteries, as the name of course implies. But the lithium ion battery really started to take off in the 1990s and early 2000s. For decades before that, it was used in things like greases or in pharmacologics, so its use has definitely mushroomed in recent decades. Nickel is used to make stainless steel, but its use in the lithium-ion battery has become extremely important in that same time frame as well. Rare earths are a subset of critical minerals. We said rare earth.

They're very good rare earth. As you know, we're looking for rare earth all the time. They're a group of 17 minor metals found on that periodic table of the elements, and they're used to make magnets that turn power into motion. So the thing that makes your cell phone vibrate is a magnet made from rare earths. So broadly, when we look at critical minerals, copper has been one of the most important for many, many, many years. But when we look at all these other assortments of these niche areas like lithium or cobalt or rare

earths, they've just exploded in popularity because of this electrified transition that our entire global economy is going through right now. What are they in that I might not know about, that I might not realize? One of the things that I like to talk about is just think about all of the gadgets and gizmos in your house, Noel, that are powered by lithium ion batteries today that weren't even 20 or 30 years ago. So a great example is a leaf blower.

Leaf blowers historically have been powered by two-stroke engines, and that are just really bad for the environment. They emit this noxious plume of pollutants that contribute to climate change. And so many governments across the planet are actually outlawing them or phasing them out. Washington, D.C., for instance, has determined that they should be banned. The answer, many people say, is get a leaf blower powered by a lithium-ion battery. And so you're starting

to see these sprout up at home improvement stores across the United States and really the world. Here's the question that I have though. Where do all the critical minerals used to make that electric leaf blower come from? Do we know that the copper is ethically sourced? Do we know that the lithium was produced in a sustainable manner that honored ESG and environmental commitments. And what about the other critical minerals in there?

And we don't know. You know, as part of my book, I actually went down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out where do all the critical minerals come from in these leaf blowers and other household appliances now that are powered by lithium ion batteries. And I couldn't actually find an answer because tracking that supply chain was extremely difficult. So this is not just about electric vehicles. This is about all of the devices that we use every single day that are increasingly powered by these lithium ion batteries. They're all built with critical minerals.

And are critical minerals just things, I'm guessing here, that you dig up out of the ground? Yes, yeah, exactly. So for many of these critical minerals, they're extracted the way that you would extract, of the ground? Yes, yeah, exactly. So for many of these critical minerals, they're extracted the way that you would extract, say, gold or silver, sort of that you actually have a big caterpillar or other piece of large earth-moving equipment that would take the rock out of the ground, and then you would process it in a series of chemical steps.

That is the case for most of these critical minerals. Some have different methodologies, though, by ways that they are produced. Lithium, for instance, can be produced by basically filtering out lithium from brines or salty waters. And these are often found in places of South America, like in Chile or Bolivia or Argentina.

But there's no way around it that, broadly, this involves mining. And mining is just not popular, depending on who you talk to. Mining is loud and it's intrusive and it can have an effect on the environment but we have to have mining in order to have this electrified future so there's a huge tension there. Yes and in fact your book is called The War Below which which nods to some of the tension. What are the sides in that war? Yeah so I see sort of two issues

or two tension points here. Certainly there's the geopolitical tension because we know right now that the United States produces relatively few amounts of these critical minerals and China and its allies have spent the better part of the past 30 or 40 years cornering control of many of these critical mineral markets and they've been very willing to use that control as economic leverage, as an economic weapon. There's also a battle here closer at home, Noel, because, you know, while we do have reserves of

many of these critical minerals within our borders, we just generally don't like mining. People don't want a mine in their backyard, or they don't want a mine where they might have gone camping or fishing as a child and have strong their backyard, or they don't want a mine where they might have gone camping or fishing as a child and have strong memories there, or they just might have concerns about what mining might do to land in the long term. And so there's a big tension point there as well. And then I would add to that, that there's also a tension point around where we want to actually process these materials, because once you take that rock out of the ground, you just can't put it into a battery.

You then have to process it into a form that can be used to make a battery or other electronic device. So if people don't want to mine in their backyard, they definitely probably don't want a giant refining complex in their backyard as well. But that is an extremely important part of this supply chain here and has to be part of the conversation. The Trump administration's interest in critical minerals, which appears to be profound, almost makes it seem as if this is an existential struggle. This is one of the most important things that the American government can and should be

thinking about. Do you agree with that? Well, what I would say is that whoever controls the production and processing of these critical minerals will control the 21st century economy the way that control of petroleum defined the 20th century economy. I mean, I think it's that stark of an issue here for us to look at. And this is something that not just President Trump is focused on. You know, many folks across the aisle in Washington, D.C., Democrats, Republicans, and independents are focused on this. You know, I think it's the one issue actually that unites people

politically in Washington, D.C. right now. Everyone in this room agrees that we must proactively manage the minerals that are crucial for our country's energy future. For both sides of the aisle and for all Americans, ensuring a stable supply of mineral resources is essential for our country's energy future. For both sides of the aisle and for all Americans, ensuring a stable supply of mineral resources is essential for our national security and future economic well-being. And it also was an area that President Biden, when he was in office, focused on. These minerals, power, phones and computers, household appliances, electric vehicles, and batteries, solar panels, wind turbines,

and so much more. Without these minerals, we simply cannot function. They can't function. And I'm not saying that oil or natural gas will be phased out completely. I don't think that's a realistic assumption, but we do know that our economy, not just in the United States,

but the economies of other nations across the world are expanding to include more and more of these critical minerals. And there's going to be a fight for supply on the global stage. And so the United States can either produce more of its own domestically or go out to global markets and try to tap deposits there. And this is something that is very, very, very, very much a focus for folks across the Washington establishment, not just President Trump. Ernest Scheider, he's a senior correspondent for Reuters. His book is called The War Below, Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our

Lives. Coming up, the art of the minerals deal. Support for today's show comes from Quince. Quince for Father's Day. Quince says they have tons of pieces that your dad will actually want to wear, such as organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from weekend hangouts to those nice dinners that dads go to.

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quince.com slash explained. 365-day returns. quince.com slash explained. Available 5.3 liter V8 engine, 20 inch high gloss black painted aluminum wheels, off-road suspension with available 2 inch factory installed lift kit, plus a towing capacity of up to 13,200 pounds. You'll be ready for anything this truck month. Truck Month is on now. Ask your GMC dealer for details. When comedian Chris Gethard was growing up, he went to a place called Action Park. It was one of the first

water parks in the country, and it was built by a man who had no experience building theme parks. Some people called him a berserk Willy Wonka. Anyone who went to Action Park understood you could get really messed up going there. Not only did we know that, it was a huge part of the appeal. I'm Phoebe Judge. Listen to our latest episode, Action Park on Criminal, wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Gracelyn Baskarin is a mining economist by training.

She now directs the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And she says critical minerals at this moment are at the center of a lot of US foreign policy. We are starting to see the rise of minerals diplomacy, which is what happens when we embed minerals into our foreign policy. We are forging alliances. We are making strategic decisions. We are pursuing certain objectives, all driven by a need to enhance our mineral security,

which we acknowledge we can't do alone because at the end of the day, the US still has limited geological reserves. So we have less than 1% of the day, the US still has limited geological reserves. So we have less than 1% of the world's cobalt, nickel and graphite. So we have to work with other countries. Let's talk about the countries that do have what we want. And let's start with China. China is the leading producer of critical minerals. It has more or less cornered the market on refining them.

What are the stakes here for the United States? So China has built this advantage in minerals through about 40 years of concerted effort by linking up their foreign policy. So when you look at how they've used things like Belt and Road Initiative, they have, you know, spent their money and made their decisions to secure minerals from Africa, Latin America, Asia, Australia, and then they bring it back home for processing. So when we look at some of our key minerals, like rare earths, graphite, cobalt, lithium, nickel,

they process between 40% and 90% of the world's supply. What this means for the United States is that China can now weaponize these minerals. China has banned the export of some materials essential to the manufacturing of electronics and some military equipment to the U.S. It comes in response to Washington's chip sanctions on Beijing. Rare earth minerals are a sort of ace up China's sleeve in the escalating trade battle. They represent a relatively small proportion of the country's exports, but they are crucial

for the supply chains of other nations. And what this means, because the U.S. doesn't necessarily have alternate supply, is that we now face supply chain vulnerabilities and potentially undermine our ability to protect ourselves in the instance of war. How do you hear President Trump talking about this? We've seen President Trump talk a lot about critical minerals. So we've seen executive orders on domestic production and processing, international cooperation. We've heard the president talk about it in the context of Ukraine. And one of the things we are doing is signing a deal very shortly with respect to rare earths

with Ukraine, which they have tremendous value in rare earth. And we appreciate that. Democratic Republic of Congo. Many, many people come from the Congo. I don't know what that is, but they came from the Congo. Saudi Arabia. We are rock and the United States is the hottest country with the exception of your country.

I have to say, right? I won't. I'm not going to take that on. No, Mohammed, I'm not going to take that on. We've seen him talk about mining under the sea. This administration is really thinking about all of the above, home abroad, production, processing, on land, underwater, but really going at it with all the tools in the toolkit. All right.

Let's run through that list of countries that you just gave us. Ukraine. How do we hear President Trump trying to hone in on Ukraine when it comes to critical minerals? So President Trump has pushed for the reconstruction deal that we signed with Ukraine, which essentially creates a fund that in the long term is capitalized by future mineral, oil and gas revenue in Ukraine, as well as co-capitalized by the United States. I said, well, we want something for our efforts beyond what you would think would be acceptable. And we said rare earth there very good. Now, Ukraine is a complicated place. So and here's why. Some

minerals are a little bit more, you know, what we might call shovel ready, right? Something like lithium. But even then you have complexity because two of the four lithium reserves in Ukraine are actually on Russian occupied land. We actually don't have a good understanding of what is economically viable. You also mentioned DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is an interesting one because the U.S. does not generally spend a lot of time thinking about that nation. But not long ago, we saw the president of DRC on Fox News basically saying to President Trump, We want to extract these minerals, but also process them as this would create a lot of

jobs. And we want a partnership that will provide lasting peace and stability for our countries, which we need. So, DRC has become a hot area in terms of mobilizing US government efforts. So what's happened is there has been a conflict, a long-running conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Congolese government has refuted M23's claims of an ongoing genocide against Tutsis in the DRC.

They say it's a pretext for M23's backers, Rwanda, to invade Congo by proxy and take control of its vast mineral resources. This battle, which has been raging for close to 30 years, is always about the control of Congo's mineral wealth. Congolese are paying the price. Now what President of Congo, the DRC, has came to President Trump and said is like, we need military support. And in exchange, we will give you access to minerals. So essentially a mineral for military support deal.

We really have a lot to give. And all we ask is really for an opportunity to live in peace. What we have seen already happen is that through the Trump administration, they have negotiated essentially a principles framework for peace that gives the US access to minerals in both Rwanda and the DRC, a separate deal. And there will be a third deal that is a peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda. We've made a lot of progress with Rwanda and Congo fighting

a very violent war, by the way. This is a game changer because DRC has a very, very developed mining sector. So 70% of the world's cobalt comes out of the Congo. They have fantastic lithium and nickel reserves. So it's a place where we see that we could actually get minerals for American offtake quite quickly, which makes it quite an interesting place for the administration to be targeting efforts. Okay. And then finally, although this is happening in many more places, but Greenland. President Trump has talked about annexing Greenland.

Greenland is a wonderful place. We need it for international security. Getting control of Greenland. The people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States of America. And initially, when he first took office, I think everyone was really confused. And then it almost immediately emerged again. This is about critical minerals. Greenland is a strategic area for two reasons. One is from a national security position. It's geographically well positioned.

The second is a critical mineral story. But we have to acknowledge there's a lot of minerals in Greenland. However, it's not all easily or cost-effectively mined. And cost competitiveness is a critical determining factor in whether a mining company is obviously going to go extract it. So it's a long-term look and obviously Greenland and Denmark have said they are interested, right, in private exploration and, you know, potentially sale of private land. However, they're not looking to be annexed. There are absolutely more diplomatic ways to pursue mining interest in Greenland.

And we have to remember that it's not just about the US and Greenland here, it's also about our European allies. We are not going to outcompete China alone. We are going to need our European allies, we're going to need allies in emerging markets, we're going to need Canada. So this is, we're going to have to find a more diplomatic approach to pursuing our minerals, security goals with Greenland. Then there are the parts of the world that are not nations.

President Trump wants to issue licenses for deep sea mining. President Trump signing an executive order to fast track deep sea mining off the US coast. China, however, is warning that this could break international law. Now major countries, including France, Germany and Chile, are calling for a pause on all deep sea mining operations in these common areas, where mining exploration has already prompted protests. However, nations including Norway, China and South Korea are in favor of pushing ahead.

Does anybody really own the ocean? This is a great question and it's probably going to be one of those interesting things that we will watch play out in the next few years because there's a lot of mineral potential underwater but there's a lot of challenges that we have. So one is licensing. We have now, we have our licensing system and the International Seabed Authority has their own licensing system. What happens when there's a dispute between these two frameworks?

We're not really sure, number one. Number two, there's maritime security implications that we're not thinking about. We're going to have Chinese ships sitting between Mexico and Hawaii under the guise of deep sea mining without a clear way of how to monitor and manage that in an era where geopolitical tension is quite rife. And then the third thing, which we obviously hear about the most probably is the environmental implications because we actually don't know. It's not that we know it's good or we know it's bad.

We haven't really done it at commercial scale. So there's still a lot of questions about how to manage that. — Critical minerals are in fact critical. That's become clear throughout the course of this episode. They're critical for national security, they're critical for the economy, they're critical for our climate future. President Trump does seem to be taking this much more seriously, at least publicly, than his predecessors. Is that fair to say? Has he seized on something here that maybe the American public was missing? So, I want to actually go back to Trump's first administration. It was really 2017, where President Trump passed the first executive order, mandating that we take a better look

at our supply chains, understand our vulnerabilities and identify what we need to do. So, this was started under Trump's first administration. Then we went to Biden and President Biden actually built on the efforts of President Trump. Then the big thing that President Biden did was obviously the Inflation Reduction Act, which created a demand signal. It encouraged you to buy the EV

and by encouraging you to buy the EV, I encouraged large scale mineral investments because we need far more minerals for EVs in any other industry. And then now we go to President Trump and while certain things like the Inflation Reduction Act are clearly incongruent with the current administration, we see a further acceleration. But all to say that minerals are the most bipartisan issue in Washington DC and we generally some changes, have seen administrations build on what the previous has done.

Gracelyn Baskarin directs the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Next week, we're going to ask, what does it take to find critical minerals here in the United States? And could we possibly innovate our way out of a tricky situation? Avishai Artsy produced today's show. It was produced in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team. Jolie Myers is our editor. Andrea Christensdottir and Patrick Boyd engineered. And Laura Bullard checked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.