Trump Admin Accelerates Mining Projects as China Curbs Critical Mineral Exports

The Trump White House is turning to a little-known tool to fast-track federal approvals for a slate of mining projects it says are vital to shoring up domestic energy, technological, and defense supply chains dominated by China.

In an announcement late last week, the White House added 10 critical mineral exploration and mining projects—including projects that would produce coal, copper, lithium, silver, phosphate, potash, molybdenum, and antimony—to the federal permitting dashboard, a move that increases transparency in approval timelines, streamlines the permitting process, and ensures rapid prioritization. Officials said those 10 projects are just the beginning and that several more will soon be added to the dashboard.

The action signals a significant departure from how previous administrations have utilized the federal permitting dashboard. Since the bipartisan Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act created the tool a decade ago, the federal government has used it to fast-track just two mining projects.

It also underscores President Donald Trump's commitment to strengthening domestic mineral supply chains. The president issued an executive order last month instructing his administration to prioritize mining projects, stating that such actions are imperative for American national security. Critical minerals are required to manufacture energy technologies, batteries, semiconductors, and military-grade equipment—but are largely imported from China.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, hasn't been afraid to leverage its position as the world's largest producer of critical minerals for strategic geopolitical aims. In the latest example, China issued strict export controls on antimony, germanium, and gallium—all key components of technologies that Americans and the United States military rely on.

"There are projects that have languished or stalled for years, sometimes decades, and it's because of government bureaucracy getting in the way. The president has made it very clear that we need to move projects forward that are going to help the American people and make America energy dominant," senior White House official told the Washington Free Beacon. "It's about using all of the levers of government to our advantage, versus against projects."

"Lots of people have talked about critical minerals in the past and yet here we are with some of the worst permitting timelines in the world," said a second senior White House official. "This president is adamant that we're going to change that and we're going to treat this sector like its priority. We're going to provide our entrepreneurs and our businesses with the tools they need to be successful."

Both officials confirmed that the White House will continue to add more projects to the federal permitting dashboard. The projects selected last week, however, could themselves play a significant role in boosting mineral production in the United States.

For example, the Resolution Copper project in Arizona—which the United States Forest Service moved to advance in conjunction with the White House announcement last week—could become one of the largest mines in North America, producing the equivalent of 25 percent of domestic copper demand annually. The Biden administration had previously sought to slow permitting for Resolution Copper, E&E News reported.

The Stibnite gold mine in Valley County, Idaho, is another project that the White House added to the permitting dashboard. That mine, according to its developer Perpetua Resources, contains roughly 67,000 metric tons of the mineral antimony and could account for 35 percent of the nation's antimony demand during its first six years of production.

The White House also added multiple lithium exploration and mining projects to the prioritization list. Those projects—the McDermitt Exploration Project in Oregon, the Silver Peak Lithium Mine in Nevada, and the South West Arkansas Project in Arkansas—would provide a significant boost to the nation's minimal lithium production.

Despite their importance to national and energy security, the selected mines have all faced years of permitting delays and federal reviews. The Free Beacon reported in December that Perpetua's antimony project in Idaho has waited 14 years for its permits.

"The president and the White House are doing everything possible to fast-track U.S. solutions to get us out of this bind. And I think we're going to get out of it," Andrew Horn, the founder and CEO of American critical minerals firm GreenMet, told the Free Beacon. "Unfortunately, he lost four years of corrective action while we had another president in here who was not as effective."

"We've got a lot of catching up to do here—all these key materials are the bedrock of our defense industry, as well as our technological and industrial strength and policy," Horn continued. "All of that is controlled by China either directly or indirectly through their control of the entire supply chain. And so we need to fast-track coming up with our own options and independence immediately. It's an emergency. It's probably the biggest emergency."

According to the International Energy Agency, copper is a major component of wind turbines, electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, nuclear power infrastructure, coal plants, and natural gas plants. And antimony is a key component of munitions, night-vision goggles, military uniforms, and utility-scale batteries while lithium is vital for electric vehicle batteries.

The United States, however, mined just 4.8 percent of global copper supplies, 2 percent of global lithium supplies, and 0 percent of global antimony supplies in 2024, federal data show. China dominated mining production of those same minerals last year and held an even larger stranglehold on global mineral refining capacity.

"President Trump is working diligently to reshore and secure our nation’s supply chains from the mine up," Rich Nolan, the president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said in a statement to the Free Beacon. "When you look at the projects the administration has initially focused on for improved permitting, these are hardly mines that are being sped through anything—some are longstanding, responsible mining projects that have needlessly languished in the permitting process for more than a decade."

"The U.S. has the second longest timeline to bring a mine online in the world," he continued. "With China having fully weaponized its control of mineral supply chains, we now have an administration that realizes the status quo is dangerously unacceptable and is taking thoughtful, informed action to change course."

Like Horn, Nolan and his organization were critical of the Biden administration's approach to critical minerals and mining. The Biden White House failed to fast-track mining projects and often sided with environmentalists who argue mining is harmful for nearby wildlife, ecosystems, and watersheds.

The Biden administration took action to shut down massive mines in Minnesota, South Dakota, Alaska, and Arizona. It also created new national monuments and regulations blocking large swaths of federal lands from mining leases.

"The Trump Administration is moving at full-speed to ensure Americans aren’t reliant on foreign nations for critical minerals," White House spokesman Alex Pfeiffer said in a statement. "The recent final approvals for the Resolution Copper project in Arizona, for example, will help create thousands of jobs in Arizona and produce up to a quarter of the nation’s copper demand. Making America great again means making American mining great again."

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