Critical minerals take centre stage in world politics: Andy Home

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump today to sign a critical minerals deal as a way of securing continued U.S. backing in the war against Russia.

It initially started as a rare earths deal before someone realised that Ukraine doesn't actually have too much in the way of these 17 esoteric metals.

The draft text on the proposed Reconstruction Investment Fund therefore simply refers to "deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil and gas".

Mortgaging Ukrainian security against its mineral wealth comes with a long-dated pay-back.

The clue is in the word "deposits". Finding mineral deposits is the easy part. Mining them is more difficult. Processing them is more difficult still.

But the deal is a sign that after a century of oil politics we're now entering a new age of metal politics.

WHAT LIES BENEATH THE SURFACE?

If Ukraine has a lot of rare earths, it's news to the U.S. Geological Survey, which doesn't include the country in its list of either top producers or largest reserves.

The handful of rare earth deposits that Ukraine hosts haven't been surveyed since Soviet times.

In mining terms, we don't even know the size or composition of the resource, let alone whether it could qualify as a reserve deemed economically viable for extraction.

Ukraine does have confirmed reserves of other critical metals such as titanium and lithium but getting them out of the ground is a whole bigger challenge.

Mining requires infrastructure and power, both in short supply in Ukraine after three years of war.

Even assuming any deposits can be mined profitably, there's the not so little question of how to process raw material into metal.

China dominates so many critical mineral supply chains not because it has the largest ore reserves but because it has mastered the mid-stream part of the production cycle.

It's also starting to leverage this technical know-how by restricting exports of critical metal processing technology, making it even harder for the West to catch up.

In short, it's going to be a good while before Ukraine can deliver on its part of the minerals deal by monetising what is still in the ground.

METALS REVOLUTION

China's dominance is why the United States and Europe are so desperate to secure their own critical mineral supply chains.

But it's a metallic revolution that is driving that hunger.

A 20th century landline telephone only needed a length of copper wire to work. An Apple iPhone still contains copper but it also needs aluminium, cobalt, gold, lithium, tin, tungsten and a sprinkling of rare earths for you to be able to make a call.

Now consider what goes into a more advanced bit of technology such as an F-35 stealth fighter jet.

Metals are no longer just bits of hard stuff to bang into shape but are used in increasingly complex combinations in what is more akin to inorganic chemistry than traditional metal-working.

The poster-child for modern metallurgy is the lithium-ion battery, which comes in multiple chemistries each using a slightly different combination of metal inputs.

The first commercial battery only appeared in 1991 but the technology has rapidly evolved to become the core driver of the transition to electric vehicles, which is why the West is racing to build out its own battery metals supply chain.

And while Trump may not think much of electric vehicles, he knows how important metals are to the U.S. military. Indeed, it was Trump in his first term who declared critical minerals a national emergency.

METALLIC POKER

Critical metals have become the new bargaining chip on the geopolitical card table.

Trump has also set his sights on Greenland, which does have accredited reserves, including of rare earths, but which is behind even Ukraine in having the infrastructure to get them out of the ground.

Vladimir Putin has been quick to join the metallic poker game, pointing out that Russia boasts considerably more rare earths than Ukraine if the United States is interested.

He'll even throw in two million tonnes of primary aluminium a year since he's heard the United States might be a bit short of the stuff if it goes ahead and puts tariffs on imports from Canada, its largest supplier.

Which rather begs the question of whether Trump may not be better looking closer to home if he's really that keen on getting rare earths and other critical metals.

Canada has lots of them, is a mining friendly jurisdiction and has extensive metals processing capacity.

But Trump seems to have thrown out the previous administration's concept of "friend-shoring". Or maybe it's the list of friends that has changed.

Either way, the minerals deal with Ukraine is unlikely to be the last of its kind.

As metals become a geopolitical currency, Ukraine is not the only country looking to play the metals card.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is trying and failing to fight back the M23 rebel group, which has seized the two largest cities in the east of the country.

The country's president Felix Tshisekedi touted a Ukraine-style deal in an interview with the New York Times, offering future supplies of the country's critical minerals, particularly cobalt, for Western assistance.

Such is the new age of metals diplomacy.

You're going to be hearing a lot more about a bunch of elements in the periodic table that you've never heard of, even though you're using them every day.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.