While the U.S. economy’s foundations and future expansion increasingly center on digital assets, the Trump administration aims to remind Americans that tangible commodities remain highly relevant. Previous presidents sought to deter speculative market behavior by emphasizing oil, the world’s most traded physical good. However, for Trump and his officials, another physical commodity has become too crucial to overlook.
“There is no realer thing than oil—and I would add to that there’s no realer thing than critical minerals,” Vice President JD Vance stated on Wednesday.
Vance was addressing ministers from 55 nations, who convened in Washington this week to discuss a critical minerals trading bloc. Such a partnership would aim to weaken China’s dominant control over the mining of key elements essential for everything from smartphones to electric vehicles to fighter jets—foundations of substantial economic value that could rival petroleum’s strategic importance.
Trump has taken significant measures to boost the U.S. presence in the global market for critical minerals, including elements like cobalt and lithium, as well as valuable rare earth metals. This month, in addition to a minerals-focused trading bloc with allies, the administration announced of the raw materials, and over the past few months the government has in multiple suppliers of rare earths and minerals. This entire strategy is designed to lessen America’s reliance on China, which holds a on critical minerals mining and processing and has not hesitated to during its trade war with the U.S.
“A lot of us have learned the hard way, in some ways, over the last year how much our economies depend on these critical minerals,” Vance remarked during his speech.
Recovering Lost Ground
Vance characterized the significance and value of these materials as potentially surpassing that of the expansive digital economy, which has absorbed a large portion of U.S. investment in recent years. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and the necessary data center infrastructure to power them are dominating private investment and GDP growth. Last year, the capital expenditure of five major U.S. technology companies totaled , according to analysts, who also warned that investments in AI-related sectors had become “critical” to GDP growth, “with no guaranteed return.” In the first quarter of last year, AI accounted for .
“As much as data centers and technology and all of these incredible things that we’re all working on matter, fundamentally you still have an economy that runs on real things,” Vance said.
With its mineral reserves and expanded stakes in industry giants, the U.S. has begun directing more government funding toward the mining sector, though China still leads in this area. Last year, China invested a record in overseas metals and mining projects, as part of its growing Belt and Road portfolio in Central Asia and Africa.
The U.S. Seeks Collaborative Efforts
This is not the first time an administration has urged markets to focus on tangible goods. In 2008, early in his presidency, Barack Obama frequently for artificially inflating prices. Obama tightened a loophole that exempted energy futures traders from some federal oversight and regulations, arguing that “excessive speculation” from investors had contributed to soaring gas prices for consumers. His was more funding to monitor oil futures trading and higher penalties for those found to be manipulating oil markets.
Vance looked even further back for a historical comparison to his critical minerals framework. He referenced the Washington Energy Conference, that aimed to establish shared energy policies following an oil embargo that had caused economic devastation for oil-consuming nations over the past year. The conference’s goal was to alleviate price hikes and supply shortages, a particular challenge as the embargo had been imposed by a small group of oil-producing nations in the Middle East and North Africa.
“That meeting took place during a moment where global energy supplies were concentrated, where markets were distorted, and access to a single critical resource—at that time, of course, being oil—had become a tool of political pressure,” Vance said.
Five decades later, the critical resource is rocks and minerals, and their concentration is almost entirely controlled by a powerful economic adversary to the U.S. At the summit, Trump officials discussed greater collaboration with partners and allies to strengthen supply chains against potential disruptions from China, proposing a series of potential market mechanisms to achieve this, including price floors among participating nations.
“This entire effort will be stronger and far more competitive if we build it together,” Vance said.