The Trump Administration is becoming increasingly focused, and ambitious, in implementing its agenda to secure US access to critical minerals and rare earth materials.  This reflects the geopolitical importance of critical minerals, signals that the United States is in a period of significant policy reprioritization, and creates new and unique opportunities for private sector investment today and in the coming years.  Policymakers in Washington are seized of this issue like never before.

While there is building policy momentum with respect to critical minerals, US and international companies seeking to leverage these opportunities may also encounter legal, regulatory, political, reputational, and operational risk.  Those in the critical minerals sourcing and processing supply chains and others, such as insurers and financial institutions, need to develop a firm understanding of these risks as they pursue new opportunities.  Likewise, they need to understand how exactly to make the most of those opportunities, which may require the development of legal, regulatory, and political strategies that differ from those of the past.  

Strategic Landscape

Critical minerals are non‑fuel mineral commodities vital to modern supply chains for electronics, semiconductors, batteries, and electric motors.  Given this wide applicability, governments consider critical minerals essential to economic and national security.  These minerals range from widely used industrial inputs (e.g., aluminum, copper, nickel) to specialty metals and rare earth elements.  US policymakers have become increasingly concerned about the ability to maintain an adequate and secure critical mineral supply—challenging in large part because China dominates critical minerals mining, and processing, and therefore is able to control and manipulate markets and supply chains for many of these materials.

U.S. policy around critical minerals rests on statutory and regulatory definitions. Executive Order 13817, issued in December 2017, defines a “critical mineral” as a “(i) a non-fuel mineral or mineral material essential to the economic and national security of the United States, (ii) the supply chain of which is vulnerable to disruption, and (iii) that serves an essential function in the manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for our economy or our national security.”  The Energy Act (30 U.S.C. §1606) largely incorporated this core definition, with some exceptions.

The Trump Administration’s ambitious and creative agenda is motivated in large part not only by China’s longstanding dominance in critical minerals, but also its recent moves to tighten access to critical minerals as geopolitical leverage.  China has long cultivated and leveraged its partners to secure minerals and honed an industrial base that can refine and process them.  But, in 2025, Beijing introduced new critical mineral-focused export controls as part of the on-going trade war between China and the United States.

China is, in part, deploying these export controls to push back against perceptions of US trade overreach.  The US and China engaged in cycles of retaliatory tariffs in 2025.  In April 2025, the Ministry of Commerce announced export restrictions on seven rare earth elements in retaliation for President Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese goods.  This dynamic injected uncertainty into critical mineral supply chains and was an added point for bilateral economic tension for most of the year.

China was poised to expand this export control regime as late as October 2025.  Beijing had announced two waves of potential controls.  One set included licensing requirements for permanent magnets, sputtering targets, technologies related to rare earths mining, smelting, and separation, as well as other items manufactured abroad containing 0.1% or more by value of certain rare earths.  The other set restricted exports related to super-hard materials, rare earth equipment and raw materials and items related to the production of lithium batteries, cathode materials, and graphite anode materials.  The cumulative effect would have restricted global access to seventeen heavy metals.

China agreed to pause several of these controls for one year after a summit between President Xi Jinping and President Trump in late October 2025.  China did not rescind the export restrictions of April.  And even though some of the more restrictive controls are on hold, Beijing’s actions underscored its dominance and US vulnerabilities with respect to global critical mineral supply chains.

The Administration’s Toolkit

The Trump Administration is developing and leveraging a range of tools to bolster the reliability and security of critical minerals sourcing and processing, and to attract foreign commitments to improve the supply chain.  The Biden Administration had helped usher in the use of presidential authorities to boost the domestic production and processing of critical minerals, invoking Title III of the Defense Production Act to support to support US defense and commercial supply chains around five critical minerals related to batteries.  Now, the Trump Administration is escalating its focus on infusing public capital into domestic production, accelerating agency grantmaking, and soliciting international partners.

The Trump Administration’s central organizing feature is the White House National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), established by executive order and housed within the Executive Office of the President.  Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright lead the council, alongside Executive Director Jarrod Agen, with a mandate to oversee agency efforts to leverage energy technologies to support economic growth, national security, and global influence.  In an interview, Agen said their mission is, in part, to “cut through the bureaucracy and get projects done.”  This spirit is playing out across several lines of effort.

First, US agencies are directing incentive and financing programs toward critical minerals under this framework.  The following is a non-exclusive list of programs responding to the renewed push to bolster the U.S. critical minerals supply chain:

• Department of Energy: Through the Loan Programs Office, the Energy Department can provide large-scale loan guarantees to qualifying critical materials projects.
• Department of the Interior: The Interior Department has launched initiatives to map and recover critical minerals in support of presidential directives to increase mineral production.
• U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC): The DFC offers several types of funding support and investments for critical-minerals mining, processing, and supply-chain buildout projects in foreign jurisdictions.
• Department of State: A critical State Department’s incentive platform was the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), which supported strategic mining, processing, and recycling projects through diplomatic partnerships.  The Administration recently announced the creation of the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement as the successor to the MSP. 

The most notable incentive expansion is “Project Vault,” a strategic minerals reserve backed by a $10 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank and $2 billion in private-sector financing. In parallel, based on an August announcement, the Department of Energy is preparing to provide funding opportunities totaling nearly $1 billion to advance and scale mining, processing, and manufacturing technologies.

The United States is also now taking or seeking to take major equity positions in the rare earths sector.  Last July, the Defense Department announced a partnership to bolster domestic production of rare earth elements with a leading U.S. company. Under the plan, DOD would acquire $400 million worth of preferred stock in the company. In November, the US Government announced a separate $1.4 billion partnership with Vulcan Elements intended to scale Vulcan’s domestic rare earth magnet supply chain. Most recently, in January, the Trump Administration announced that the United States would take a 10% stake in a leading US critical minerals company in support of the company’s construction of a stateside mine and manufacturing facilities.  It is less clear what authorities underpin these equity positions, although the Pentagon has long relied on Title III of the Defense Production Act to authorize investments in the industrial base.

Expansive diplomatic and trade moves have accompanied the Administration’s push to shore up domestic production.  In February 2026, the Trump Administration convened a “Critical Minerals Ministerial” in Washington to challenge China’s dominance over strategic supply chains.  Fifty-four countries and the European Commission participated in the Ministerial.  The Ministerial complemented the State Department’s announcement of a US-led consortium of countries collaborating on artificial intelligence and critical minerals supply chain security, known as Pax Silica, in late 2025.

In late February, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued a request for comments on the design of a plurilateral agreement on trade in critical minerals.  The office is also considering other policy actions to strengthen critical mineral supply-chain resilience.  USTR indicated it is evaluating negotiating approaches and seeking input on a range of topics, including which minerals and partners to include, how prices should be set and updated, and investment screening and ownership issues.

The United States has also included critical minerals provisions or statements in joint frameworks with Australia, Japan, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Many of these bilateral agreements center on reciprocal pledges of mobilizing capital, facilitating investment opportunities and streamlining permitting.  Closer to home, the US Trade Representative announced an Action Plan under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement through which the United States and Mexico will coordinate their trade policies and other mechanisms to mitigate critical mineral supply chain vulnerabilities.

Congress also remains active. On February 11, 2026 the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3617, titled Securing America’s Critical Minerals Supply Act. The bill requires the Department of Energy to secure the supply of “critical energy resources” — including critical minerals and rare earth elements — that are considered essential to US energy security. The agency would also be required to assess the vulnerabilities, diversity, and capacity constraints of critical energy resource supply chains and develop strategies to strengthen these supply chains.

Risks Amid Opportunities

Seizing on these opportunities requires strategic planning, informed by a nuanced understanding of important legal and operational risks.  Because some critical minerals are sourced from or transit through conflict‑affected and high‑risk areas (including those still subject to US sanctions), companies can expect face heightened obligations around supply‑chain due diligence.

Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are two jurisdictions that, though they have high exploration potential, also present significant legal risks with respect to sanctions, corruption, and forced labor, among others.  Operating in both countries also carries high operational risk to company personnel and assets.

Sanctions block most dealings with the Government of Venezuela.  OFAC is beginning to issue licenses for certain activities related to oil and gas in Venezuela, but it has yet to issue any authorizations for mining or metals.  Separately, in August 2025, the Treasury Department sanctioned armed groups involved in illegal mining/taxation schemes in critical mineral-rich parts of the DRC, including through the use of forced labor.  And the United States has long prohibited the import of any product that was mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part by forced labor pursuant to Section 307 of the Trade Act of 1930 (19 USC. 1307), meaning that supply chain diligence could be an important part of risk mitigation planning.  Accordingly, organizations interested in seizing opportunities in the critical minerals space should be wary of potential exposure to sanctioned parties or forced labor.  Sanctions remain a significant US policy tool to address malign activity in connection with the critical minerals supply chain, and a significant risk to those operating in the industry. 

The pace of US policy and investment is likely to remain tied to broader US‑China strategic dynamics and the durability of new trade-and-financing architectures.  The Trump Administration is clearly signaling that critical minerals are now treated as a foundational input not only for defense and energy, but also for the AI and advanced manufacturing ecosystem. Still, sourcing and extraction opportunities may eventually shift toward jurisdictions with elevated legal and reputational exposure.

WilmerHale advises clients across the full critical minerals ecosystem, including mining and processing projects, government contracts and procurement, sanctions/export controls, international trade and tariffs, CFIUS and national security reviews, internal investigations and enforcement, and cross-border disputes and arbitration.