I was going to point out that we read the same stuff about Afghanistan a couple years ago, presumably as a left wing explanation of why US troops were there. The mineral resources of Afghanistan and North Korea are not proven to the extent of the mineral deposits in Africa and South America. So even when the infrastructure is already there, as in the case of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and dare I say Russia, it rapidly deteriorates under socialist management, and does not appreciably help the general population.
All that was before Donald the Liberator.