Tag Archives: Greenland rare earths

The New Trump Doctrine: Kiss the Hand you Cannot Bite

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Four US major automakers are racing to find workarounds to China’s stranglehold on rare-earth magnets, which they fear could force them to shut down some car production within weeks. Several traditional and electric-vehicle makers—and their suppliers—are considering shifting some auto-parts manufacturing to China to avoid looming factory shutdowns, people familiar with the situation said.

Ideas under review include producing electric motors in Chinese factories or shipping made-in-America motors to China to have magnets installed. Moving production to China as a way to get around the export controls on rare-earth magnets could work because the restrictions only cover magnets, not finished parts, the people said.

If automakers end up shifting some production to China, it would amount to a remarkable outcome from a trade war initiated by President Trump with the intention of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.  “If you want to export a magnet [from China] they won’t let you do that. If you can demonstrate that the magnet is in a motor in China, you can do that,” said a supply-chain manager at one of the carmakers.

China in April 2025 began requiring companies to apply for permission to export magnets made with rare-earth metals, including dysprosium and terbium. The country controls roughly 90% of the world’s supply of these elements, which help magnets to operate at high temperatures. Much of the world’s modern technology, from smartphones to F-35 jet fighters, rely on these magnets….In May 2025, industry groups representing most major automakers and parts suppliers told the Trump administration that vehicle production could be reduced or shut down imminently without more rare-earth components from China.

Excerpt from Sean McLain et al., Automakers Race to Find Workaround to China’s Stranglehold on Rare-Earth Magnets, WSJ, June 4, 2025

Two days after the publication of this WSJ article, Trump announced, on June 6, 2024, that Xi agreed to let rare earth minerals flow to US (in exchange of? not revoking Chinese student visas? what else?)

To Pollute is to Own: U.S. and Greenland

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 NASA scientists discovered in 2024 remnants of Camp Century, a Cold War-era U.S. military base, under Greenland’s ice sheet. Project Iceworm, a clandestine Pentagon plan, aimed to build nuclear-missile launch sites beneath the Arctic ice. The underground site, which was designed to store 600 medium-range ballistic missiles, reveals the extent of U.S. involvement in Greenland going back over half a century. 

Camp Century, as the outpost was called, was partially constructed in 1959, and abandoned in 1967 after the ice sheet was deemed too unstable to support the proposed missile-launch network. Over the years, ice accumulated and the facility is now buried under at least 100 feet of ice…

The presence of U.S. nuclear weapons has historically been a source of friction with Denmark. The U.S. military at the time didn’t disclose Camp Century’s nuclear-related purpose to Copenhagen, a self-declared nuclear-free zone…In 1968, a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber crashed near the Thule Air Base, causing the payload to rupture and disperse, leading to radioactive contamination of the sea ice. The incident led to public controversy in Denmark, as did the revelation that the U.S. stored nuclear weapons at the Thule Air Base without informing Copenhagen or Greenland.

Excerpt from Sune Engel, The U.S. Nuclear Base Hidden Under Greenland’s Ice, WSJ, May 14, 2025

To Own Means Nothing-To Do Means More: Metals and Minerals of the World

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Trump wants to secure the minerals the U.S. needs for everything from smartphones to jet fighters by striking deals in Ukraine, Greenland and even Russia. But even if the Trump administration secures more mines for American companies through agreements like the mineral-rights deal being discussed with Ukraine, it may have to send much of the minerals to China—its main geopolitical rival—to be processed…

In truth, the U.S. already has abundant supplies of rare earths, but it relies on China to refine them. That is because the U.S. has lost much of its capacity to process minerals, while China has become the world’s dominant refiner of rare earths, cobalt, copper and many other metals.

Until the 1990s, the U.S. was a major refiner of minerals and metals. But then China emerged as the dominant player, powered by its cheap labor force and looser environmental regulations of a sector that can be highly polluting. The voracious need of Chinese manufacturers for raw materials during the country’s years of explosive growth was also a boon for Chinese refiners. Today, the sheer scale of China’s refining industry makes it difficult for others to compete. According to industry estimates, the cost of building a refinery plant in China is a third of the cost in the U.S.

Excerpts from  Jon Emon, How China Beat Out the U.S. to Become the Top Player in Rare-Earths Refining, WSJ, Mar. 25, 2025

The Conquest of Greenland–Not for the Faint Heart

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Teeming with underground riches, Greenland might set the scene for a modern gold rush. President Trump, for one, covets Greenland’s deposits of critical minerals, some of the largest in the Western Hemisphere. But as the visiting Australian company, Energy Transition Minerals, has discovered, securing them is a daunting task. 

Kvanefjeld, the site of the billion-year-old solidified magma in the mountains above the town of Narsaq, contains an estimated 1 billion tons of minerals, enough to potentially transform the global market for rare-earth elements, used in such things as electric vehicles, jet fighters, wind turbines and headphones. 

Mining companies in Greenland operate in one of the most challenging environments in the world because of the Danish territory’s sparse infrastructure, hostile weather and a tricky political climate. Mining here is expensive, and few investors are willing to pay for it given the uncertainties.   Despite its extraordinary mineral wealth, Greenland has only two active mines: a gold mine in commissioning phase and a mine producing anorthosite, used in fiberglass, paints and other construction materials…“Investing in Greenland is not for the faint of heart,” said Brian Hanrahan, chief executive officer of Lumina Sustainable Materials, which operates the anorthosite mine on the west coast of Greenland. “The local logistics are incredibly complex.” Building a mine involves high startup costs, and has to be done from scratch in rugged terrain. Greenland is nearly one-fourth the size of the U.S., and about 80% of it is covered by ice, with deep fjords and ice sheets up to a mile thick. There are no roads between settlements, and shipping is treacherous because of floating ice off the coast.

Bureaucracy is a hindrance, too. The process of granting licenses to foreign companies to mine is lengthy and cumbersome. While applying for licenses, companies need to keep employees on payroll with benefits. With a population of 57,000, Greenland’s labor market is tight…Extracting Greenland’s minerals is about more than profit; it is about resource control. Western governments are eager to break China’s dominance of the global market for rare earths and other minerals, which it could wield as a weapon in a trade war…“Greenland is host to some of the largest rare-earth resources known to exist globally, which have potential to supply virtually all the foreseeable needs of North America and Europe for decades to come,” said Ryan Castilloux, managing director of Adamas Intelligence… ‘

But when directors from Energy Transition Minerals visited Narsaq in February 2025, they were met near the icy helipad by protesters in brightly colored vests emblazoned with a logo spelling “Uranium? No, Thank You” in Greenlandic…Many among the Inuit population of Narsaq are concerned about contamination of drinking water, plants and wildlife. “We live off nature as our forefathers have done for generations. We will be forced to move,” said Avaaraq Bendtsen, a 25-year-old archaeology student. “Think about the indigenous people as well. This is our land. It is our mountain.”

Excerpts from Sune Engel Rasmussen, Greenland Has the Makings of a Mining Boom. So Where Is Everyone?, WSJ, Mar. 4, 2025

Mining the Earth to Save it

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The rush to secure green-energy metals is bringing new life to one of the world’s oldest mining hubs. Like the United States, Europe is worried that it is too reliant on China for supplies of once-obscure natural resources, such as lithium and rare-earth metals, that are seen as climate-friendly successors to oil and gas…. 

On both sides of the Atlantic, one of the best answers to long-simmering worries about green-energy security is to look north…, for example, to the “Canadian Shield,” a vast band of rock encircling Hudson Bay. The “Baltic Shield” that stretches across Scandinavia to western Russia is similarly mineral-rich. It helps explain why Sweden in particular has such a long mining heritage. In the mid-17th century, the country’s “Great Copper Mountain” near Falun provided two-thirds of the world’s copper. Even today, 80% of iron ore mined in the EU comes from a site near the Arctic town of Kiruna that Swedish state operator LKAB has exploited for well over a century.

The energy transition is an opportunity for Sweden’s mining complex. LKAB said in January 2023 that it had identified Europe’s largest body of rare-earth metals close to its existing Kiruna operation…Digging up the planet to save it is an awkward pitch. The only way for miners to counter accusations that they are adding to the problem they want to solve is by decarbonizing operations. Here Sweden is again helped by the geology of the Baltic Shield, whose river valleys are favorable for green-energy production. Roughly 45% of the country’s electricity comes from hydroelectric power, with much of the remainder provided by nuclear and wind. It is also cheap, particularly in the Arctic, where many mines are located. Against a favorable geopolitical backdrop, the biggest risk for investors is political. Mines, which can bring a lot of noise and relatively few jobs to an area, don’t tend to be popular locally.

There is a reason the West relies on autocracies for a lot of its oil.

Excerpts from Stephen Wilmot, For Mining EV Metals, the Arctic Is Hot, WSJ, Feb. 14, 2023

After the Oil Shock, the Metals Shock: fueling the green economy

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Indonesia banned exports of nickel ore in 2020 in a bid to capture more of the metal’s value. As a result, exports of Indonesian nickel products were worth $30bn in 2022, more than ten times what they were in 2013. Nickel smelters have sprouted around the country, and makers of batteries, in which the metal is a key component, are building factories. On January 17, 2023 a cabinet official said the government was close to sealing deals with the world’s two largest makers of electric vehicles (EVS), Tesla and BYD, to build cars in Indonesia. Flushed with progress, the government is now thinking beyond nickel.

“This success will be continued for other commodities,” said Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s president, in December 2022. He confirmed that an export ban on bauxite, the ore used to make aluminum, was coming in June 2023. The bauxite industry is scrambling to prepare itself for the shock….The government has suggested that a ban on copper exports could be implemented next, with bans on tin and gold exports to follow.

The country’s pulling power in the global nickel market will be hard to replicate, though. Indonesia produces 37% of the world’s nickel. But its bauxite, gold and copper production is less than 5% of the global total…Bauxite smelters are also expensive and harder to build than nickel smelters. Local firms are struggling to raise the capital needed for them, often around 18trn rupiah ($1.2bn)…All the eight bauxite smelters are under construction are Chinese investments. . 

Indonesia’s resource nationalism also risks falling foul of global trade rules but Jokowi, Indonesia’s president  remains  undeterred. “This is what we want to do: be independent, independent, independent,” he said.

Excerpts from Indonesia’s Industrial Policy: Full Metal Jacket, Economist,  Jan. 28, 2023

When Others Do our Dirty Work: the Costs of Overdependence

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China is tightening its grip on the global supply of processed manganese, rattling a range of companies world-wide that depend on the versatile metal—including the planet’s biggest electric-vehicle makers.

China produces more than 90% of the world’s manganese products, ranging from steel-strengthening additives to battery-grade compounds. Since October 2020, dozens of Chinese manganese processors accounting for most of global capacity have joined a state-backed campaign to establish a “manganese innovation alliance,” led by Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group, setting out in planning documents goals and moves that others in the industry say are akin to a production cartel. They include centralizing control over supply of key products, coordinating prices, stockpiling and networks for mutual financial assistance.

The squeeze sent prices soaring in metal markets world-wide, snagging steelmakers and sharpening concern among car makers. China’s metal industries already dominate the global processing of most raw materials for rechargeable batteries, including cobalt and nickel. Three-quarters of the world’s lithium-ion batteries and half of its electric vehicles are made in China.  High-purity forms of manganese have increasingly become crucial for battery-powered automobiles, touted by Volkswagen AG and Tesla Inc. in recent months as a viable replacement for other, more-expensive battery ingredients….

While manganese ore is relatively abundant around the world, it is almost solely refined in China. Battery-grade manganese is traded mostly privately, and pricing can be opaque. Miners say a metric ton of the purified metal could cost up to $4,000—barely a 10th of the cost of cobalt, a widely used battery metal. By replacing cobalt, manganese could help auto makers produce 30% more cars with the same amount of nickel, analysts say.

Rival manganese projects outside China view the cartel-like activities as an opportunity to gain momentum for their own battery-grade developments…Still, analysts say such projects outside China might take years to start and heavy cost investments to develop. Viable bases of manganese ore are often located in remote regions, which require expensive infrastructure to ferry and process extracted ores.

Excerpt from Chuin-Wei Yap, China Hones Control Over Manganese, a Rising Star in Battery Metals, WSH, May 21, 2021

The Geo-Economics of Rare Earth Minerals

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Greenland is rich in rare-earth minerals, and the superpowers want them…These 17 elements are used in  all things electronic. The renewable-energy revolution will also rely on them for power storage and transmission. On the darker side, weapons—including nuclear ones—need them too.

A new open-pit mine at the top of Kuannersuit, a cloud-rimmed mountain near the settlement of Narsaq in the south of Greenland may be rich in rare earth. So believes Greenland Minerals, an Australia-based company, which has been angling for the excavation rights for the past decade.

Greenland’s environment ministry has given a tentative go-ahead. A majority of parliamentarians have already declared themselves in favor of digging. In early February 2020, the townsfolk of Narsaq will hear representations from the island’s government. In Greenland, Urani Naamik (“No to Uranium”), a community lobby, has strong support. Nobody wants (mildly) radioactive dust, an inevitable by-product of mining. Many worry about the waste—a sludge of chemicals and discarded rock fragments—that mining would leave on top of the mountain.

The bigger long-term issue is who gets the mine’s spoils. Shenghe, a Chinese conglomerate, is the largest shareholder in Greenland Minerals. The Danish government, in a frenzy of Atlanticism, earlier managed to stop Chinese companies from investing in the expansion of two airports on the island. Will it preserve Greenland’s rare earths for NATO?

Cloud mining: In search of Greenland’s rare earths, Economist, Jan. 16, 2021, at 41