US establishing critical minerals reserve in counter to China

WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is launching a new strategic critical minerals reserve to ensure that American manufacturing can wean itself from its reliance on China.

The $12 billion reserve will be "the first ever stockpile of critical minerals" and will be used "to ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage," Trump said as he announced the new stockpile at the White House.

"We don't want to go through what we went through a year ago, although it did work out," he said in the Oval Office, likely referring to China's since-suspended decision to impose export controls on critical minerals, which sent shockwaves through global markets.

"Just as we have long had a strategic petroleum reserve and a stockpile of critical minerals for national defense, we're now creating this reserve for American industry so we don't have any problems," said Trump.

The initiative will be funded by $10 billion in export-import bank financing and an additional $2 billion of financing from the private sector.

Trump said he expects the loan used to form the reserve to generate a profit from interest.

He did not mention China by name, but his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, directly pointed to Beijing as a key reason for the reserve's formation.

"Prior presidents took America for granted. They let our critical minerals only be controlled by China. They let our mining business go to hell by closing all the mines, closing our coal plants, while China opened them," said Lutnick. "We are taking back critical minerals. We are taking back mining."