Christina Lu
In the whirlwind that has been U.S. President Donald Trump’s first month back in the Oval Office, analysts, officials, and diplomats have scrambled to understand the returning U.S. leader’s scattered—and often outlandish—foreign-policy fixations. After all, what do Canada, Greenland, Panama, and Ukraine really have in common?
One answer could be potential access to China-free supply chains for critical minerals, the resources underpinning everything from advanced weapons systems to green energy technologies. Ottawa is a mining hub, while Greenland boasts reserves of rare earths—though developing them is another story. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, too, has hyped up his country’s rare-earths potential, even though Ukraine has no commercial rare-earth deposits.
“When we look at a lot of the foreign-policy decisions that have come out in the first 30 days: Canada? Resource-rich. Greenland? Resource-rich. Ukraine? Resource-rich. Panama Canal? Vital for moving resources,” said Gracelin Baskaran, a critical minerals security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who noted that Panama is home to one of the world’s biggest copper assets.
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