Grant Anderson
The Department of Interior has recently released their 2025 draft list of minerals deemed most vital to American national interests, the economy, and our defense. The list is accompanied with a report containing a new methodological model determining how mineral supply chain complications affect our national interests and thus, why the selected minerals are on the list. Minerals include everything from gold, aluminum and antimony to germanium, tin, and zinc. In addition, potash, silicon, copper, silver, rhenium, and lead have all been recommended for the 2025 update.
Upon the draft list’s release, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum stated that, “President Trump has made clear that strengthening America’s economic and national security means securing the resources that fuel our way of life. This draft List of Critical Minerals provides a clear, science-based roadmap to reduce our dependence on foreign adversaries, expand domestic production and unleash American innovation.”
Sarah Ryker, acting director of the U.S. Geological Survey added that, “Minerals-based industries contributed over $4 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2024, and with this methodology we can pinpoint which industries may feel the greatest impacts of supply disruptions and understand where strategic domestic investments or international trade relationships may help mitigate risk to individual supply chains. This is a next generation, forward-looking, risk assessment that can be used to prioritize securing the nation’s mineral supply chains.”
This release follows on other recent moves by the Trump Administration focused on the value of key minerals. In July, it was announced that the Dept. of Defense had entered a public-private partnership with Rare Earth Element (REE) processor MP Materials – the only U.S. domestic rare earth element mining company currently in operation. This particular deal was established with the aim of assuring an accessible, ready, and home-based supply of REEs, which are becoming increasingly important to our national security and defense requirements. With growing concerns about our ability to source REEs from competitor nations like China or dicey parts of the world (this is an issue that I’ve commented on in the past) the imperative to rebuild our own production capability is beyond clear.
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