Estelle Denton-Townshend
The demand for critical minerals is increasing due to their growing importance for the green-energy transition, defence systems, and advances in AI. The EU’s critical minerals list includes 34 minerals, while the U.S.’s list comprises 50 [1]; [2]. Ukraine possesses 22 of these critical minerals [3]; [4]. NATO identifies 12 minerals as critical for the Allied defence industry of which Ukraine has six [5]; [6]. As noted by Andy Home, a senior metals columnist for Reuters, due to supply vulnerabilities, critical minerals and metals are a “new bargaining chip on the geopolitical table” [7].
In the now infamous press conference on February 28, 2025, President Trump sought to finalize a deal that gave the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, and he wanted this deal secured before a security guarantee was discussed. President Zelenskyy made it clear he wanted a security guarantee upfront. However, this transactional approach to geopolitics became unstuck as Zelenskyy, Trump and Vice President Vance publicly argued over the deal [8].
In the press conference Trump made his administration’s goals clear:
As you know our country doesn’t have much raw earth minerals. We have a lot of oil and gas, but we don’t have a lot of the raw earth. What we do have is protected by the environmentalists but that can be unprotected, but still, it’s not very much. They have among the best in the world in terms of raw earth. We are going to be using that, taking it, using it for al l the things we do including AI and including weapons, military. It’s really going to satisfy our needs. So, it’s something that we just worked out really well. We have a lot of oil, lot of gas, but we don’t have raw earth. This has just about every component of the raw earth that we need for computing, for all of the things we do. This puts us in great shape [9]
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