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"We're going to be signing an agreement that's been negotiated over a period of four or five months."WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump on Monday signed a critical minerals and rare earths deal with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling the leader a trusted friend and steadfast ally.Under the deal, the U.S. and Australian governments will invest more than $3 billion in critical mineral projects over the next six months, “with recoverable resources in the projects estimated to be worth $53 billion,” according to the White House. The Department of War will also invest in constructing a “100 metric ton-per-year advanced gallium...

Denmark’s foreign minister had the top U.S. diplomat in the country summoned for talks after the main national broadcaster reported Wednesday that at least three people with connections to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland. Trump has repeatedly said he seeks U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. He has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island. Denmark, a NATO ally of the U.S., and Greenland have said the island is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. gathering intelligence there.

A significant rare earth elements deposit has been found in Kazakhstan's Karagandy, with potential reserves of 20 million tonnes. Further exploration is required. On the eve of the EU-Central Asian Summit in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan announced the discovery of a large deposit of rare earth elements. The find was made in Karagandy, the central region of Kazakhstan. Now dubbed "New Kazakhstan," the deposit is said to have almost 1 million tonnes of cerium, lanthanum, neodymium and yttrium, elements used as components in devices such as smartphones, digital cameras and computer hard disks. “Four prospective areas have been identified within the site...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is open to offering the US access to rare minerals, including from Russian-occupied Ukraine. This comes after US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed for Ukraine to give up some of its minerals in exchange for support, in a deal which is currently being finalised, according to a Ukrainian minister. In a state TV interview on Monday, Putin said he was ready to "offer" resources to American partners in joint projects, including mining in Russia's "new territories" - a reference to parts of eastern Ukraine that Russia has occupied since launching a full-scale invasion...

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin offered the U.S. the opportunity for joint exploration of the country's rare earth metals deposits, as well as the supply of aluminum to the U.S. domestic market, under a future economic deal.U.S. President Donald Trump earlier said that "major economic development transactions with Russia" would take place. Within two hours of Trump's statement, Putin chaired a meeting with his ministers and economic advisers on rare earth metals."We, by the way, would be ready to offer (joint projects with) our American partners, and when I say 'partners,' I mean not only administrative and governmental structures...

Russia is open to working with US on rare earth production 🔻 Russia holds FAR MORE rare earth reserves than Ukraine 🔻 Foreign partners welcome—including in new regions

The U.S. and Ukraine are closing in on minerals agreement worth hundreds of billions of dollars under which the U.S. would express its desire to keep Ukraine "free, sovereign and secure," according to a draft obtained by Axios. -snip- A Ukrainian official told Axios a deal is close and could be signed as soon as Monday. The official said the document Axios has reviewed is the most recent version, but could still be amended. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna confirmed in an X post Monday that the sides were close to a deal, and said signing it would "showcase...

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said Sunday that forcing Ukraine to agree to a resource deal with the U.S. in exchange for the possibility of support against Russia is akin to “victim extortion.” The moderate Republican said Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the invasion of Ukraine three years ago, should be the one forced to pay. “Putin, and Putin alone, should bear the economic costs of Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” Fitzpatrick said in a post on the social platform X. “To force Ukraine to pay these costs is the epitome of victim-blaming and victim extortion.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is "not ready" to sign a mineral deal with the United States, deepening the rift between the United States and Ukraine. "In the form in which the draft is now, the president is not ready to accept, we are still trying to make changes and add constructiveness," a Ukrainian source told AFP. -snip- The latest terms appear to be more stringent than the earlier version. -snip- The new proposal, dated February 21 and examined by The New York Times, requires Ukraine to surrender 50% of its revenues from natural resources, including minerals, gas, oil, and earnings...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will travel to Ukraine this week to discuss a potential deal concerning rare earth minerals, according to a source familiar with his plans. Bessent will be the first cabinet-level official in U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to visit Ukraine. Both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Trump have expressed interest in a pact that would give the United States access to Ukraine's rare earth resources in exchange for continued support in fending off the Russian invasion. The source, who requested anonymity as the plans were still confidential, did not offer additional details on the itinerary. The...

President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is demanding Ukraine provide the United States with access to its vast reserves of rare earth minerals in exchange for continued military and financial assistance. “We’re telling Ukraine, they have very valuable rare Earth. We want what we put up to go in terms of a guarantee. We want a guarantee,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office. “We’re handing them money hand over fist. We’re giving them equipment. [The] European [Union] is not keeping up with us. They should equalize.” “Look, we have an ocean in between. They don’t. It’s more important...

-snip- Ukraine is one of the largest rare earth mineral suppliers in the world, and has the largest titanium reserves in Europe. The country also boasts deposits of lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite, and nickel, per the World Economic Forum. Russian forces have already taken parts of Eastern Ukraine that had historically provided the rest of the country with key minerals, notably much of the coal-supplying Donbas region. But other parts of Ukraine, including the Dnieper River basin that runs through the center of the country and the Carpathian Mountains in the West, have massive supply...

The tantalum within your device weighs less than half of the average garden pea but is essential for the efficient functioning of a smartphone, and almost all other sophisticated electronic devices. The unique properties of this rare, blue-grey, lustrous metal – including being able to hold a high charge compared to its size, while operating in a range of temperatures - make it an ideal material for tiny capacitors, which temporarily store energy. It is also mined in Rwanda, Brazil and Nigeria but at least 40% - and maybe more – of the element's global supply comes from DR Congo...

President-elect Trump made quite the buzz over the weekend when he expressed a strong interest in acquiring the Danish-controlled autonomous territory of Greenland, a land that is both immensely resource-rich and strategically a high priority to the interests of all major powers. In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump announced the nomination of PayPal co-founder Ken Howery to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, writing: “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” Greenland is incredibly resource-rich,...

There’s a modern-day gold rush happening in the attempt to dig green-energy rare earth minerals out of the ground. Some believe Wyoming could be America’s answer to China’s lock on the market. And one of a handful of Wyoming companies in the rush may have hit the mother lode. American Rare Earths Inc. has its sights on thousands of acres of land near Wheatland, Wyoming. The company disclosed in a technical report on Wednesday that it found 64% more rare earth minerals than it had originally envisioned in a March 2023 assessment of the land. The newly disclosed figure of...

After more than a decade of war and nation building, members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are heading for the exits. Although what ISAF will leave behind is better than what was there in 2001, Afghanistan remains a battered land. However, the resources Afghanistan’s land holds — copper, cobalt, iron, barite, sulfur, lead, silver, zinc, niobium, and 1.4 million metric tons of rare-earth elements (REEs) — may be a silver lining. U.S. agencies estimate Afghanistan’s mineral deposits to be worth upwards of $1 trillion. In fact, a classified Pentagon memo called Afghanistan the “Saudi Arabia of...

A conservative estimate of the cost of a transition to “clean energy” is $1.7 trillion needed for mining of copper, cobalt, lithium and other rare earth and exotic metals and minerals. This transition will supposedly fuel electric vehicles (EVs) being cheaper than gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2027, and electric SUVs cheaper by 2026, according to BloombergNEF. Additionally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a new report found renewable installations for energy to electricity “soared to 280 GW globally in 2020, up 45% from 2019,” with “renewables (solar and wind) accounting for 90% of global electric capacity installations in 2021...

Colin Freeman Sat, April 3, 2021, 5:47 AM Picture taken on March 30, 2021 shows a view of Nuuk, Greenland - EMIL HELMS /AFP Picture taken on March 30, 2021 shows a view of Nuuk, Greenland - EMIL HELMS /AFP AS elections go, it sounds rather minor-league: a contest with just 40,000 voters, triggered by a planning row in one of the most remote, inhospitable corners of the planet. On Tuesday, though, diplomats from Washington to Beijing will be watching carefully as Greenland holds snap parliamentary polls. With a total of population of just 56,000, its electorate is smaller than...

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded $30 million in funding to Australia’s Lynas Corp to build a rare earth processing plant in Texas, as the nation continues to seek to break its reliance on Chinese imports of the critical minerals. The facility will be able to process light rare earth elements (LREE), which are not only widely used in consumer goods such as cellphones and electric car motors, but also critical to the production of next-generation fighter jets and precision-guided missiles. It’s not the first time Lynas, one of the few major non-Chinese rare earth miners, received federal funding...

A simple visit to an obscure factory by Chinese President Xi on Monday is all it took to raise the specter that China could be contemplating cutting off supply of critical materials to the U.S. and potentially crippling large swathes of its industries. Also, fueled by political innuendo in Xi’s recent call for a new “Long March” in reference to a key founding tenet of the Chinese Communist Party, speculators are growing increasingly wary of Chinese export restrictions to the U.S., including rare earth minerals. As the world’s largest producer, the Middle Kingdom has a vice-like grip on rare earths...