China dominates global mining and refining of many Critical Minerals central to new technologies of the 21st century.
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For several years, Washington has spoken loftily about critical minerals. Senior officials have rightfully framed supply chains for tungsten, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, and copper as central to economic security, technological development, defense readiness, and green energy. The diplomatic activity has been substantial. Since 2023, the United States has signed multiple memorandums of understanding across Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America intended to secure alternative supply chains for these minerals outside China’s orbit.
Yet many of these agreements have struggled to move beyond signaling. Announcements have outpaced implementation at a degree beyond expected drag from haggling or logistics. Frameworks have proliferated, while financing, capacity refinement, logistics infrastructure, and downstream industrial development have lagged. The gap between rhetoric and deployed capital is becoming increasingly visible to partner governments and markets.
America’s Current Minerals Strategy
So far, Washington has sustained momentum because American policymakers have broadly adopted a “minerals first” strategy. The logic behind this approach is understandable. China’s monopoly in critical mineral refining was built over decades through coordinated industrial policy, subsidized infrastructure, and vertically integrated processing systems. The United States cannot realistically recreate that dominance overnight even if the political will existed.
Instead, America’s current strategy focuses on expanding global raw material supply. Increased raw ore production from friendly jurisdictions is intended to weaken pricing leverage in downstream processing markets and gradually narrow China’s advantage across the value chain. In theory, greater upstream diversification eventually incentivizes the emergence of local refining and alternative industrial ecosystems, as ore miners will want to move up the value chain and use revenues for national development.
The problem is that mining projects do not operate in isolation. Mines require railways, ports, processing facilities, export financing, power generation, water supplies, and long-term offtake agreements. Without those adjacent investments, new mineral production frequently reinforces the very dependencies Washington seeks to reduce.
President Trump’s transactional diplomacy has arguably injected new life into the early phases of critical-mineral negotiations by broadening cooperation and reframing the negotiations in security terms. The emphasis on dealmaking has accelerated discussions surrounding mining concessions and investment frameworks. In several regions, governments that previously struggled to attract Western attention are now receiving visits from senior American officials, financiers, and mining executives.
That momentum is significant, but it’s not sufficient. It has also created an unintended weakness. Too many projects are being approached as individual transactions rather than components of larger industrial ecosystems. There is no coordination analogous to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The consequences of this are already visible worldwide.
Fleeting Mineral Opportunities
The Lobito Corridor has emerged as one of the West’s flagship infrastructure initiatives. The corridor is designed to connect copper and cobalt production in Central Africa to Atlantic export markets via Angola. Strategically, the project is intended to reduce logistical dependence on Chinese infrastructure and create alternative routes for mineral exports. The vision is compelling. Implementation and progress are not.
Financing commitments remain uneven, infrastructure construction has advanced glacially, and investors continue to question whether supporting industrial capacity will materialize around the corridor itself. America’s lagging cooperation is taken for granted, with the project openly planning for American investment and assistance to taper off owing to fickle policy and poor planning by Washington. The government of Zambia, one of the primary beneficiaries of the Lobito Corridor, once hoped it would offset Chinese influence, but no longer operates under such assumptions.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo presents an even starker example. Kinshasa has actively pursued stronger ties with Washington and Western partners after the previous government cozied up to Beijing. It was one of the first instances of Critical Minerals Diplomacy, and the framework promised investment and support. Cognizant of the local risks, it was to be a tool to compete with China in the mineral-rich but unstable Congolese interior. To date, utilization has been minimal, and China retains its advantage in the key areas of Congolese cobalt and copper.
It’s not just frontier markets in Africa where the United States is dropping the ball. In Kazakhstan, likely the next “Saudi Arabia of Critical Minerals,” the United States is on the edge of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but is at least moving in the right direction.
Kazakhstan offers something many jurisdictions cannot. It possesses substantial mineral reserves, a relatively sophisticated financial architecture, political stability, and growing integration into international capital markets. More importantly, it is actively positioning itself as a long-term industrial partner rather than simply a raw materials exporter. One would hope Washington would reward this engagement.
At the November 2025 C5+1 Dialogue, the United States and the five Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, stated their intent to deepen economic cooperation. On June 11 and 12, Astana will host the Astana Mining and Metallurgy Congress alongside the first in-person C5+1 Dialogue focused on critical minerals.
The alignment of these forums, combined with recent investment announcements such as American company Cove Capital’s move into Kazakhstan at the world’s largest unexploited Tungsten deposit, reflects at least an understanding that implementation is the order of the day. This project illustrates the evolution. The deposits are estimated to contain one of the world’s largest undeveloped tungsten resources. The project structure combines American operational leadership with Kazakh national participation and substantial backing from EXIM and DFC financing mechanisms. Plans for a Nasdaq listing further integrate the project into Western capital markets.
Recalibrating American Strategy
This model matters because it moves beyond extraction alone. It’s good news for Kazakh-American relations and for competition with China in Central Asia. The bad news for American policymakers is that this risks unintentionally teaching the wrong lesson: that mining ecosystems largely sort themselves out. The Kazakhs largely took the initiative in creating a palatable investment ecosystem. In other, less-developed locales where host governments cannot do so, Beijing will bring its own ecosystem. It remains unlikely Washington will match this commitment.
Mining investment in frontier markets carries political and financial risk. Strategic competition in critical minerals requires accepting that risk. No serious industrial realignment will occur without long-horizon commitments. Washington now faces a vital strategic choice. If the United States wants resilient critical mineral supply chains, it must invest beyond the mine itself. “Mining first” doesn’t mean mining only. Beyond refining facilities, transport corridors, export terminals, power systems, and industrial processing zones are all part of the same geopolitical competition.
Otherwise, the pattern will repeat itself. American diplomacy will open doors, initial mining agreements will move forward, and China will continue filling the adjacent sectors that ultimately determine long-term control over the value chain.
Critical minerals were never only about rocks in the ground. They are also about who finances the ecosystem surrounding them.
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