Trump Signs Executive Order to Expand Critical Minerals Production, Says It Will End America’s ‘Vulnerability’

by Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post) President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday instructing his deputies to devise “a strategy to reduce the Nation’s reliance on critical minerals” that are largely imported and used to produce everything from smartphones to weaponry.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who has backed expanded mining production on federal land, has lobbied the White House to make the issue of critical minerals a top policy priority. He briefed reporters on the new USGS report Tuesday, saying “we are vulnerable as a nation” because we rely so heavily on imports from China.

David S. Abraham, a senior fellow at the think tank New America, said in an email that in addition to the fact that the United States lacks the infrastructure China has for processing critical materials, any effort to expand production could spark a new partisan fight. Republicans tend to use the issue to justify reforming “all mining and environmental laws that would impede the development of mining,” he said, while Democrats fear it would mean “eviscerating” these laws and instead focus “on building up human capacity to develop supply chains rather than the resources themselves.” READ MORE