On the Hunt for Land

1. Land is back. The invasion of Ukraine. Eyes on Greenland. The race for raw materials. The physical dimension of artificial intelligence. Everywhere, people are talking about controlling territory again. Physical possession of space seemed a thing of the past, consigned to history by progress. For decades, it was repeated that world power was based on flows– maritime, commercial, financial, digital. Now we discover that even that was a temporary condition, linked to the extraordinary differential power of the United States. A historical parenthesis, rather than an evolution of the human race.

A series of factors centred on America are paving the way for the return of land.

First and foremost, control of raw materials. Washington once again considers this an absolute priority. For three reasons. It wants to break free from its dependence on China, which has a monopoly on a large quantity of minerals. Autarky is not possible because the United States does not have enough minerals to satisfy its hunger for resources. And we are in the midst of a technological revolution. The United States must refuel a war industry that has not prepared for mass warfare for thirty years; it must win the AI race; it must occupy space. All these objectives require an exponential leap in terms of raw materials. Without secure, China-proof supplies, none of the three can be achieved. Moreover, the race to the cosmos promises to exploit the mineral resources of celestial bodies.

Expansionist projects are also back in vogue. In particular, continentalism: annexing Canada and Greenland and dominating North America to secure strategic buffers in the challenge between empires, move the front line of defence further away, consolidate a sphere of influence, expand the domestic market and broaden the base of natural resources. These are recurring themes in American strategic culture in the century between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. Henry Seward, Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson, buys Alaska and dreams of Greenland and British Columbia to subjugate Canada. The global leadership created after the triumph in the Second World War marginalises them. But it does not erase them. Now, as then, the idea is that the United States has created such an advanced and voracious consumer industry and society that it must import the raw materials it does not have in order to perpetuate itself. For decades, supplies from the Third World were regulated by the Washington Consensus: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. Now that a piece of that world (China) has become the adversary and dominates the supply chains, it is logical that continentalist ambitions should return.

Hence, the creation of colonies. The growing political weight of American tech magnates is reviving this peculiar feature of neoliberalism. The idea is to carve out territories from third countries, remove them from state sovereignty and establish communities governed like companies, with contracts instead of rights, where the latest technological innovations can be tested. Since the 1970s, the fathers of neoliberalism, such as Milton Friedman, have been calling for similar solutions (for Singapore, Hong Kong, London) in what historian Quinn Slobodian calls “fragmented capitalism”. Today, investor Balaji Srinivasan theorises the “network state”, praised by Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. Some attempts have already been made (Próspera in Honduras), but these are little more than tax havens. More ambitious ones are emerging. Such as Praxis, owned by Dryden Brown, who is looking for land from Greenland to the Mediterranean to found a techno-utopia where “Western civilisation can be restored and our ultimate destiny among the stars pursued”. There are also small pockets within the United States: Trump has promised to establish ten “freedom cities”, contracted not to companies like the “company towns” of the 19th century but to economic groups that qualify as “start-up nations”.

Finally, climate change. Global warming will make areas in Russia, Canada and Greenland habitable or exploitable. Meanwhile, entire regions will become inhospitable. Even in the United States, some areas will become too hot (Texas and California, technological and demographic hubs) or submerged by the oceans (Florida, the third most populous state). The world’s powerful have given up the battle against CO₂. As they adapt, they are studying how to exploit the opening up of immense arable or habitable lands in the Arctic. This includes the financial circles from which part of Trump’s new leadership comes.

In short: the return of the land is part of the American revolution. Its hunger for resources is a fact that is changing reality. It is worth exploring further.

2. The United States is facing a very serious problem that could compromise its strategic autonomy. Not only does it not have enough raw materials at home, but it also depends on its main rival, China. The shortage is so severe that the Trump administration has declared it a national emergency.

Until you look at the details, you don’t grasp the depth of the issue. The United States imports 100% or at least half of 41 minerals listed as strategic by the U.S. Geological Survey. China is the leading supplier of 29 of these minerals. And where China does not extract them, it dominates refining capacity: it produces 98% of the world’s gallium, 68% of germanium, 79% of silicon, 67% of titanium and 40% of arsenic trioxide. In 2022, the United States produced zero arsenic, zero gallium, 2% of the world’s germanium, 3% of silicon and 1% of titanium.

These materials are simply irreplaceable for some of America’s most vital priorities. Semiconductors require large quantities of gallium, germanium, palladium, silicon, arsenic, titanium and iridium. Rare earths are crucial in military manufacturing: an F-35 contains 410 kilograms, a destroyer 2,350 kilograms, and a Virginia-class submarine as much as 4,173 kilograms. They are also used to create magnets fifteen times more powerful than normal ones, which are used to make drone engines, missiles and fighter jets. AI data centres guzzle electricity, and therefore copper: it is estimated that 200,000 tonnes will be needed by 2028, which the United States simply does not have. An electric car engine requires seven times more minerals than a combustion engine car: graphite is essential here, and Beijing controls 77% of global production and 100% of refining. Not to mention uranium, which is essential for the nuclear arsenal and for powering data centres with small reactors. China is not a monopolist here, but over the last ten years, the United States has almost wiped out its production, reducing it by a factor of 25, in order to import everything from Canada, Kazakhstan (the world’s largest producer), Australia, Russia and Uzbekistan, in that order.

In short, without these resources, there can be no war, no industrial revolution and no technological primacy. These are the pillars on which America bases its certainties. Beijing has a weapon of pressure because it controls most of the materials for the war industry. In December 2024, it blocked the sale of gallium, germanium, graphite and antimony (key ingredients for military electronics and ammunition); in April 2025, it restricted the sale of six of the seventeen rare earths.

The case of gallium and germanium is instructive. They will be increasingly needed for high-end semiconductors for military use to maintain a military advantage over China: it is estimated that the production of gallium nitride-based chips will increase by 25% over the next five years. In 2020-23, the United States imported all of its gallium and half of its germanium, 19% and 51% of which came from the People’s Republic.

Replacing or downsizing Chinese supplies is complicated. These two materials are obtained from the smelting of aluminium and zinc, but then require such costly refining that it is unprofitable for a private investor. China is rich in zinc and dominates the aluminium supply chain, while the United States has little zinc, little bauxite (from which aluminium is obtained) and few smelting plants. They could draw on large deposits in Australia and Peru, but the former is equally lacking in refining capacity and sends everything to China, while the latter has no plants capable of producing gallium and germanium.

In 2024, the United States managed to reduce imports from China of both materials by about 10%, thanks to zinc extraction in Alaska, increased germanium production in Utah financed by the Pentagon and, looking ahead, a refining plant in Belgium that sources its supply from mines in Congo. Triangulation to evade Chinese controls has also increased. And recycling is on the rise: a New York company recovers pure gallium from waste materials. But these are just small steps. Two elements with names evoking the limes of the Roman Empire are threatening to seriously limit the American empire.

3. How did this happen? The dispute over raw materials is a disastrous strategic consequence of the ideology of globalisation. With deindustrialisation, America has recklessly transferred some of the pillars of its power. It was happy to move dirty and nasty activities to the Third World. Under the illusion that it could have everything it wanted.

The United States simply stopped extracting. A nation founded in part on mining, scene of great battles and great tragedies, between the 1950s and 1970s it introduced very restrictive laws to reduce the impact on health and the environment. After the adoption of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970, production costs tripled in just six years. Added to this is a labyrinthine approval process. A project can require up to thirty permits, often duplicates, from different agencies. And even when a mine gets the green light, it is very easy to sue and block it for years. Take the Thacker Pass lithium deposit in Nevada. Even with very quick permits (a year and a half), a legal dispute over the spiritual impact on local tribes halted work for three years. As a result, it takes an average of 29 years to start a mine in the United States, the second worst country in the world after Zambia.

Raw materials are a perfect example of how, in recent decades, the United States has erected a system of power control based not on the ability to make it fairer or more responsive to collective needs, but on the ability to block everything . To the point of doing nothing. To the point of rendering inoperable the abundance of resources with which the American elite always reassures itself. To the point of damaging strategic needs.

Meanwhile, since the 1990s, China has built a dominant position. A state project, planned for decades. It has linked the needs of industry to the university system and the research and development sector. It has studied technologies to reduce extraction costs. It has made the mining sector a foreign policy priority. Because where it does not control extraction or refining, it acquires mines abroad. This is the case with cobalt, most of which is mined in Congo by the Chinese. Beijing then nationalised the production of certain resources, such as rare earths in Jiangxi, which was once entrusted to corrupt local officials in cahoots with smugglers and is now centralised under a single state-owned company.

American negligence and Chinese domination come together in one telling case. Until 1995, the Mountain Pass mine was the world’s leading producer of rare earths. This was logical: it was in California, feeding the world’s technology hub, Silicon Valley. Then two things happened. China flooded the market with cheap rare earths. And the Californian government approved very strict environmental regulations. In 2002, Mountain Pass closed. It reopened in 2017 and returned to high production, accounting for up to 12% of the world’s rare earths. But they need to be refined. And they all go to China.

4. Returning to mining power will require an extraordinarily long effort on America’s part. Its shortcomings are profound.

There is a lack of manpower. Here, as in manufacturing, America is no longer a working-class society. The Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration is sounding the alarm: more than half of the workforce (221,000 people) will retire by 2029. It is not just workers: mining engineering graduates have fallen by 39% since 2016. Managerial and operational roles are also in short supply. There are no dedicated training programmes.

There is no single list of strategic raw materials. Each agency has its own. Until 2025, there was not even a single body coordinating mining activity. Competences are spread across fifteen departments or agencies. The Bureau of Mines was closed in 1996 and never reopened.

No stocks are held, not even of raw materials needed for war production. After the Cold War, military planning focused on short-term scenarios: one year of fighting, three years to replenish stocks. These were unrealistic prospects, because real war, like history, was over. In 2023, an alarming inventory identified shortages of 69 minerals, worth $2.4 billion. All in line with the “just in time” mentality: zero stocks to cut costs. Yet another example of how the cult of corporate efficiency has misled the war industry and American strategic culture in general. The Pentagon managed like Walmart.

The Trump and Biden administrations have recognised the seriousness of the problem. However, the first steps have been flawed. For example, the Chips and Science Act of 2022 gave no incentive to diversify the supply of minerals for semiconductors: it acted as if dependence on China did not exist. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, on the other hand, provided tax breaks only for supplies from countries with which the United States had a free trade agreement, excluding major potential producers such as Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Namibia; moreover, it focused on electric cars and renewable sources, not on chips and the arms industry.

In 2021-24, the Pentagon used the Defence Production Act of 1950 to finance 21 mines in the United States and three in Canada. However, most of this is used to produce batteries (nickel, cobalt, lithium and manganese). Above all, in recent years, 70% of the funds have not come from the regular defence budget but from emergency requests for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. In other words, the United States has only authorised spending in relation to contingent emergencies. These are unacceptable conditions for private investors, especially for new materials without stable markets such as gold. The market does not regulate itself in the interests of national security. The state must do so.

The biggest problem concerns foreign policy. It is not only oriented towards the mining sector, but also towards trade. The United States provides development aid and military assistance. In recent decades, they have lost competitiveness. Take the case of Huawei. When they had to convince many countries not to buy Chinese technology, they were asked, “What do you give us in return?”. And they had nothing to offer. The same applies to raw materials. Mining diplomacy has been reactive, unsystematic, often learning about new projects after they have been announced, missing important opportunities.

That is why in 2022, the United States and 13 other Western countries plus India launched the Mineral Security Partnership to promote joint investment in 15 potential producing countries. In three years, 30 projects have been funded, ranging from rare earths in Angola to nickel and graphite in Tanzania. But mining abroad still poses risks. Washington created the first entirely China-proof graphite supply chain: mining in Balama, Mozambique; refining in Vidalia, Louisiana; federal funding and expertise from an Australian company, Syrah. Then, unrest following the Mozambican elections closed the deposit indefinitely, located in the unstable province of Cabo Delgado, and Syrah is in economic crisis.

Replacing China is likely to be an extremely costly undertaking. Especially since Trump is completely changing the game.

5. In times of revolution, the real question is not where America will get its strategic minerals. But how. Because Trump is disrupting half a century of mining inertia. With drastic measures. And in places not previously considered.

First and foremost, domestic production. The executive order of March, 20th initiates a speeding up of permits and a review of deposits located on federal land suitable for concession to private companies. The state owns a lot of land: 2.6 million square kilometres, 28% of the national territory. The West is almost entirely federally owned, especially Nevada, Utah and Idaho. The initiative is being coordinated by the National Energy Dominance Council, chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. One example: gold is included among the strategic minerals for reactivating the stibnite mine in Idaho, from which antimony is extracted, currently blocked by China.

Domestic reserves are obviously not enough. However, Trump is imposing a radical transformation of foreign policy to align it with mining interests. The emblem is the Development Finance Corporation. Until yesterday, it was a development aid agency, at most for infrastructure competing with China’s Silk Roads. Now, it is the sole investment agency for mining projects, including domestic ones. In addition, the government has suspended the 1977 law against foreign government corruption for six months, extendable for another six. The reason: “excessive and unpredictable enforcement against American citizens and companies (…) for practices that are routine in other countries (…) damages American economic competitiveness and therefore national security”.  Read in conjunction with the closure of USAID, the development cooperation agency, the message is clear: foreign policy is for doing business of strategic interest, not charity.

Almost all of the Trump administration’s major geopolitical initiatives have a mining dimension. The opening towards Russia is accompanied by negotiations on joint ventures on natural resources, particularly in the Arctic, also to prevent them from falling into Chinese hands. The truce in Ukraine hinges on an agreement on strategic minerals, i.e. US control over the proceeds of all mining projects and related infrastructure. Although not rich in rare earths, Ukraine exploits only 15% of its mineral resources and has significant deposits of graphite, titanium, lithium and uranium. It matters little that geological surveys date back to the Soviet era; on the contrary, it means that the probability of finding new riches is high.

Furthermore, interest in Greenland is linked to the imminent explosion of the mining sector. Ten years ago, there were 12 drilling sites; today there are 170. As early as 2026, New York-based Critical Metals (in which Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had a stake) will start mining the Ilímaussaq mega-deposit, which contains some 30 strategic minerals. What’s more, the need for labour could bring new inhabitants to the island; if they were American citizens and outnumbered the few locals, they could one day justify a referendum to join the United States.

Congo has offered access to its mines (cobalt, lithium, copper, tantalum) in exchange for help in defeating rebels in the east. The Trump administration has accepted and contacted Erik Prince, former head of a mercenary company, officially to ensure the safety of government personnel. The agreement seems to subordinate even military policy to the search for strategic minerals.

Among the many potential suppliers of raw materials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio dedicated his first trip to the Dominican Republic, rich in rare earths. Reason: “It is very good to have an ally in the (Western) hemisphere with access to these elements”. Southern Africa, especially the Atlantic coast, also offers possibilities. Under Biden, the United States has already invested in the Lobito railway corridor in Angola to connect the deposits in Zambia and Congo to the ocean, away from China, which is developing a similar project, but oriented towards the Indian Ocean.

In all this, the (former?) Silicon Valley is building its own supply chain. A consortium between Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman and Marc Andreessen has recently created KoBold, based in Berkeley, California, to produce metals and free itself from dependence on China. It makes extensive use of AI to find new deposits from old prospecting. It has acquired concessions in Greenland and Zambia. It goes where the government goes (or vice versa?). But it does so from a tangential position, not one of direct dependence.

Nowhere is the interest in natural resources as evident as in Canada. Washington’s hostility prompted outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to declare: “Not only does the Trump administration know how many strategic minerals we have, but it may even be the reason why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state”. Canada is America’s largest supplier, especially of conventional metals. It mines in all provinces. It has large reserves of gallium, rare earths, cobalt, tungsten and niobium, all minerals that are crucial to the arms industry and for which the United States depends on China. It has 7% of the world’s renewable freshwater resources, third only to Brazil and Russia: together with the United States, they double and take first place.

Canada contains a paradox. It is the only country in the world whose industrial production is directly financed by the Pentagon. Recently, the Defence Department has also authorised Australia and the United Kingdom. A sort of Anglosphere for the war industry. There would be no need to annex it to get more raw materials. The minimum hypothesis is that Trump wants to force Ottawa to cede control over certain resources. But when you consider estimates that Canada could gain 4 million square kilometres (almost half its land area) of arable or habitable land due to climate change, Trump’s interest in annexation becomes clearer. Moreover, the Canadian lobby group Century Initiative is calling for a 150% increase in the Canadian population to 100 million people precisely to exploit this new El Dorado.

The last place to fish: the seabed. Here too, China could soon dominate. In particular, polymetallic nodules, literally rocks in the abyss at depths of 3-6 thousand metres, rich in nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese. It doesn’t take much: an underwater drone, a robotic arm to collect them, a system to clean them and a tube to send them to the surface. But the Chinese have built a supply chain and will test it in 2025. The United States has not. Within Exclusive Economic Zones, each country can do as it pleases. Outside, authorisation is required from the International Seabed Authority (ISA), of which Washington is not a member. There is a law in Congress that would allow it to circumvent this. It could be exploited to accumulate stocks. The most convenient option would be to invest in refining, in order to receive these materials from other countries authorised by the ISA, preventing them from turning to Beijing. This seems too respectful of international law to satisfy Trump’s urgency.

6. Raw materials are a crucial component of the abandonment of the system of globalisation. It was possible to overlook them when the ideology of an unlimited America-world prevailed. Now that America is trying to set limits for itself, they are part of the definition of the limes. Resources are the stake in the decoupling, the operation of partially breaking away from China. Without them, Washington will not be able to return to waging war with an equal power. And Beijing will be able to influence the no longer infinite war capabilities of the United States.

However, America will not achieve autarky. Even if it reopens mines at home, it will focus on refining. It will continue to need supplies from abroad. It will need satellites, redefining the terms of mutual dependence. It will see Europeans as competitors, despite joint initiatives in mining diplomacy.

The hunger for raw materials will recalibrate American geopolitics: empire serves to obtain resources. It will take time, because China has built its dominance through decades of planning and patient execution. Skills that have atrophied in the meantime will be needed. Above all, a class of diplomats trained for the purpose would be needed. The war on the apparatus, which follows decades of disinvestment in diplomatic missions in the former Third World, does not bode well for any of this.

Certainly, resources will shape the reorientation of American priorities in the Western Hemisphere. In an expansionist key towards the north. In an extractive key towards the south. With a possible view towards southern Africa. In this case, mining interests will help to establish a limes in the South Atlantic. Awaiting a Tordesillas Treaty in Antarctica. With one hand in the mud and the other reaching for the stars, America is reopening the hunt for land. And not just for rare earths.

Published in: ASSALTO ALL’OCEANO COSMO – n°4 – 2025

https://www.limesonline.com/rivista/stati-uniti-terre-rare-materiali-rari-scontro-usa-cina-19145701/