Help, is on the way

America’s aggressive mining push is rewriting North America’s strategic map

In the grand theatre of geopolitical competition, 2025 has introduced a new protagonist: critical minerals. Copper, lithium, rare earths—these unglamorous elements have become the currency of power, their extraction and refinement now matters of national security rather than mere commerce. The race to secure them is reshaping alliances, upending trade relationships, and forcing governments to reckon with decades of complacency.

Digging in

President Trump’s return to the White House has brought with it a characteristically blunt approach to America’s mineral insecurity. The formation of the National Energy Dominance Council in February, under Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, signals an administration uninterested in half-measures. Executive orders have turbocharged permitting processes through the expanded FAST-41 framework, sweeping aside Biden-era environmental restrictions with the kind of regulatory enthusiasm not seen since the trust-busting days of Theodore Roosevelt—though in reverse.

The Minnesota moratorium on mining? Reversed. Federal land restrictions? Revoked. Alaska’s Ambler Road, a controversial mining corridor once shelved, is back on the agenda. The message is clear: America will dig, refine, and dominate, regulations and prohibitions aside.

Yet the strategy extends beyond deregulation. Recent trade agreements with Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia—countries not traditionally associated with American mineral policy—reveal a deliberate effort to construct supply chains that bypass China. The US-Australia Critical Minerals Framework reinforces this pivot, binding allies through investment protections and technology-sharing arrangements that resemble Cold War-era partnerships more than free-market trade deals.

Neighbours under pressure

For Canada and Mexico, the new American assertiveness creates uncomfortable choices. Both countries find themselves scrambling to secure bilateral deals that might spare them from punitive tariffs while maintaining access to American markets. Pete Hoekstra, America’s ambassador to Canada, has been open and candid in his criticism of Ottawa’s attempts to hedge its bets by diversifying trade partnerships—a diplomatic rebuke that would have been unthinkable in quieter times.

The stakes are clarified by China’s position. Controlling more than 90% of global rare earth production, Beijing has tightened export restrictions on critical elements, wielding its monopoly with the confidence of a player holding all the cards. On April 4, Beijing doubled down, adding export-licence requirements on seven rare earths — samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium — and made it clear these minerals would not be available for military applications.

The implications are clear. Goldman Sachs estimates that disruption to just 10% of rare earth production could erase $150 billion from American economic output. Between 2020 and 2023, America sourced 70% of its rare earth imports from China—a dependency that keeps Pentagon strategists awake at night.

The Price (cost) of Ambition

America’s mineral revolution arrives amid considerable turbulence. Internationally the trade relationships the US has navigated for the better part of a century have all come under increased scrutiny. Reliance on the ‘old ways’ is over. For Canada, the old relationship is dead.

Domestically, the US government shutdown has frozen $1.7 trillion in agency spending and suspended paycheques for over two million federal workers. One can only ask how the frozen governments inability to advance permitting and mining agreements has impacted the market? Well, commodity financing has cratered: September saw specialty funding plummet 60% to $287 million, down from $715 million in August. The contradiction is striking—an administration promising mineral dominance while presiding over fiscal paralysis.

Canada, by contrast, enjoys robust public support for mining expansion. Eight in ten Canadians view the sector as a government priority, recognizing its dual promise of economic diversification and national security. The Toronto Stock Exchange remains the world’s premier venue for mining listings, hosting more public mining companies than any other global centre.

Yet support without strategy produces little. Canada suffers from a decade of underinvestment in exploration and a gradual decline in mining technology leadership. Its ESG credentials, once world-leading, have stagnated. Policy remains fragmented, dispersed across federal and provincial jurisdictions that rarely coordinate effectively. The gap between public enthusiasm and governmental execution yawns wide.

Winners and losers

The mineral scramble of 2025 will not reward all participants equally. Bilateral agreements and diplomatic manoeuvring matter, but they cannot substitute for domestic capacity and political will. America has chosen velocity and strategic partnerships over environmental caution, gambling that speed and scale will deliver security before consequences arrive.

For Canada and Mexico, the choice is stark: adapt to America’s new reality or watch opportunities flow elsewhere. The old assumptions—that resources guarantee relevance, that geographical proximity ensures partnership—no longer hold. In this new scramble, advantage belongs to those who combine natural abundance with aggressive execution and clear-eyed strategy.

The parallel to Africa’s 19th-century partition is inexact but instructive. Then, as now, great powers carved up resource-rich territories, competing for strategic advantage under the guise of progress and development. The difference today is that the territories in question belong to sovereign nations theoretically able to chart their own courses. Whether they possess the political coherence to do so remains the question that will define this decade. In the race for critical minerals, coming in second means not racing at all.