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Critical minerals are no longer just industrial inputs. They are now strategic assets treated by governments as both economic infrastructure and national security leverage. Critical minerals sit inside everyday objects like smartphones, hairdryers, vacuums, and electric vehicles, but also inside missile guidance systems and power grids.

U.S. law reflects that broadened view. The Energy Act of 2020 defines “critical minerals” as minerals or materials that are essential to U.S. economic or national security, have supply chains vulnerable to disruption, and perform an essential manufacturing function such as that their absence would carry significant consequences.

In practice, that definition is sweeping. anchor battery supply chains. Gallium and germanium support semiconductors and other high-tech uses. Rare earth elements such as neodymium and dysprosium underpin permanent magnets found in electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defense applications.

As companies diversify away from concentrated suppliers, a second-order risk emerges. Some alternative sources sit in higher-risk jurisdictions, where governance, labor, or conflict-linked concerns are more acute.

This is where “critical minerals” and “conflict minerals” begin to overlap in practice. Even when the commodity is available, shipments can be disrupted by forced-labor enforcement, sanctions exposure, or traceability requirements imposed by customers, regulators, or financiers. A sourcing shift meant to reduce geopolitical risk can accidentally import compliance risk.

What this means for companies

For importers, manufacturers, and downstream buyers, the near-term imperative is operational. It is to build a compliance-and-procurement posture that assumes volatility.

Practical steps include:

•Map exposure: Identify where critical minerals enter production, either directly or embedded through subcomponents.

•Classify and document early: For controlled inputs, assume licensing and end-use information will be required, and build documentation upstream with suppliers.

•Contract for delay: Treat licensing and customs holds as foreseeable risks and allocate them clearly in contracts.

•Diversify with diligence: Diversification plans should include conflict minerals/forced-labor screening and traceability, not just alternate countries of origin.

•Monitor policy signals: Lists, proclamations, and export controls notices are increasingly early warning systems for trade risk.

For U.S.-based processors and refiners, the new critical minerals objectives may allow for new opportunities, with the Administration’s focus on domestic capacity expansion creating favorable conditions for investment in U.S.-based processing and refining operations. Companies aligned with U.S. supply-chain security objectives may find enhanced opportunities for partnerships and government support.

Conclusion

Critical minerals have become trade’s hard currency. They are not just priced, but negotiated; not just mined, but regulated; and not just shipped, but screened.

For businesses, the lesson is that in the critical minerals economy, supply chains are no longer merely commercial. They are strategic, and trade policy is being built to match.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/critical-minerals-licensing-tariffs-new-supply-chain-risk–pracin-2026-01-29/

China will allow overseas investors to invest in domestic nickel and lithium futures, part of Beijing’s efforts to boost its influence in global commodities markets.

Nickel and lithium carbonate are among 14 futures and options products that will be opened up, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement on Friday. Exchanges would be urged to make preparations to implement the changes, it said, without providing any start dates. 

China is the world’s largest buyer of raw materials, but benchmark prices are mainly set in financial centers like London, Singapore and New York. Beijing wants more sway over prices, and the move also dovetails with its goal of burnishing the yuan’s appeal as a global currency.

Read more at: https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/china-to-open-up-nickel-and-lithium-futures-to-foreign-investors

Cobalt, manganese, natural graphite, copper, nickel, lithium, and iron ore are essential inputs for solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicle batteries, and other clean-energy technologies.

Africa hosts some of the world’s largest reserves of critical minerals, including approximately 55–70% of global cobalt resources, nearly half of known manganese reserves, and more than 20% of natural graphite. The continent also contains around 5–7% of global copper and nickel reserves, smaller but strategically important shares of lithium, and limited iron ore reserves.

South Africa alone holds between 80% and 90% of the world’s platinum group metals, as well as over 70% of global chromium reserves, making it central to clean-energy and industrial supply chains.

According to the International Energy Agency, demand for lithium is expected to increase four- to six-fold by 2040, while demand for graphite and nickel will roughly double or more. Cobalt and rare earth element demand is projected to rise by 50–70%, and copper demand by approximately 30% over the same period.

Read more at: https://www.modernghana.com/news/1466175/africas-critical-minerals-are-a-huge-economic.amp

Speaking to CNN last week at the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Abigail Hunter, executive director of the Minerals Center at SAFE (Securing America’s Future Energy), a nongovernment organization, described China as “light years ahead” of the US, “through decades of strategic investments, state-backed projects and coordination with the private sector, and investing internationally.

But now Saudi Arabia is growing its mineral sector, to reduce its economic dependence on oil and, according to analysts, increase its geopolitical influence.

Saudi claims it has $2.5 trillion in mineral reserves. These include gold, zinc, copper and lithium, but also rare earth deposits, including dysprosium, terbium, neodymium and praseodymium, which are used in everything from electric cars and wind turbines to high-speed computing.

Saudi Arabia’s budget for exploratory mining increased 595% between 2021 and 2025, per S&P Global (though it is still modest by the standards of advanced mining nations like Canada and Australia). Licensing new mining sites to domestic and international companies has gathered pace.

But exploration is one thing, end product is another. “The reality is mining is a really long game,” said Hunter. “It takes three to five years to build a processing plant. It can take up to 29 years in some jurisdictions.”

The nation is cutting red tape, reducing tax rates for mining investment and intends to spend big to catch up with established players.

Read more at: https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/23/middleeast/saudi-arabia-minerals-investment-spc

Turkey is attempting to position itself as a new player in the global rare earth elements (REEs) market, yet the country continues to face significant technological, economic and geopolitical obstacles in transforming extensive underground reserves into a functioning industrial ecosystem.

Turkey is attempting to position itself as a new player in the global rare earth elements (REEs) market, yet the country continues to face significant technological, economic and geopolitical obstacles in transforming extensive underground reserves into a functioning industrial ecosystem.

A January 3 letter by Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, a copy of which was obtained by Nordic Monitor, acknowledged Turkey’s limitations, particularly in technology, even though the country reportedly has the world’s fourth-largest REE reserves.

The minister highlighted promising deposits, particularly in Eskişehir’s Beylikova district, where exploration has identified 694 million tons of complex ore containing REEs along with barite, fluorite and thorium. Drilling has extended more than 125,000 meters across 310 locations, and over 59,000 samples have undergone laboratory analysis.

Despite this geological potential, the letter suggests that converting resources into industrial capacity remains elusive.

To process the Beylikova ore, state-owned mining company Eti Maden established the Beylikova Fluorite, Barite and Rare Earth Elements Directorate and in 2023 launched a pilot facility with a capacity of 1,200 tons per year. The plant produces an initial REE concentrate using physical and chemical methods, but the sophisticated technology needed to separate individual rare earth oxides is still under development.

1. We need immediate research and development to improve the existing technologies. Western world does not have a Rare Earth refining technology that can compete with Chinese technologies.

2. Build refineries in the existing mines with infrastructure using developed technologies.

3. Take the price control of the Rare Earth Elements by tariffs or other means until the local refineries optimize the refining processes and operating cost.

Read more at: https://nordicmonitor.com/2026/01/turkeys-bid-to-develop-rare-earth-minerals-hit-wall-of-technology-restrictions/