Following US action in Venezuela, and in the context of President Donald Trump’s continuing imperialistic rhetoric on Greenland, the strategic context for critical minerals in 2026 has shifted in a radical way.
Trump’s emphasis on spheres of influence as his administration’s primary foreign policy creates an alarming risk with respect to its policy on natural resources: that genuine concerns about the resilience of critical minerals supply chains will be used to add a veneer of commercial or strategic reasoning for aggressive foreign policy moves.
On 14 January, Trump announced that he will personally negotiate agreements with foreign nations to secure minerals supplies. The priority the president places on reliable supply chains is understandable. And a US strategy built on international partnership and targeted market interventions will lead to resilience, by balancing national production and international diversification.
But the Trump administration’s ambitions in Greenland indicate disregard for matters of sovereignty and international law. That will undermine efforts at building partnerships and contribute to market volatility and divergence – at a time of significant variability of supply constraints across different commodities that will continue through 2026.
The fallacy of equating territorial control and supply
The Trump administration’s desire to acquire Greenland is emblematic of the misplaced blurring of lines between genuine supply concerns and wider foreign policy issues.
Many security reasons have been given by the White House for its wish to control Greenland. But access to its mineral potential is understood to be one motivating factor for US interest in the territory. Indeed, the US National Security Strategy (NSS), published in December, prioritizes critical minerals supply.
Greenland does have notable prospective deposits, including rare earths and other critical minerals needed for major US security projects like the F35 fighter. Washington reportedly lobbied last year to prevent the sale of one large project, rich in heavy rare earths and Gallium, to Chinese-linked buyers.
But the fledgling mining sector is years away from commercial viability at scale. It is a geologically and operationally difficult place to develop. And US companies already have access to these resources.
Challenges to the island’s sovereignty are creating a political problem and affecting other areas of policy. A wedge is being driven deeper between the US and its partners in the G7 and EU – just as their collaboration is essential for the success of other US critical mineral interventions such as price floors (subsidizing a minimum price for materials from specific producers).
President Trump promoted price floors in his proclamation of 14 January, saying that ‘the Secretary and the Trade Representative should consider price floors for trade in critical minerals and other trade-restricting measures’. But without the participation of partners in Europe or Asia, this will be very difficult to achieve, and current political tensions will set back diplomatic efforts to build alliances on this.
Other US moves are also creating ripples, as the administration continues to test international institutions and treaties.
In 2025 Trump signed Executive Order (EO 14285) which aims to fast-track domestic mining and establish US leadership in international waters, seemingly bypassing the International Seabed Authority (ISA) framework and the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS). The US and the industry feel these bodies have been slow to fulfil their objective of converting regulation of exploration into a regulatory regime for extraction.
US administration policy is already encouraging traditional partners to hedge against unilateral action by Washington. The operationalization of the G7 Action Plan will accelerate in 2026, with non-US members seeking to develop standards-based markets, mobilize capital and invest in partnerships.
China
The US–China relationship will remain tense in 2026, regardless of US moves in Greenland. But the agreement President Xi Jinping and Trump reached at their summit in October 2025 could prevent the return of the kind of export controls and tariff measures that dominated earlier phases of the dispute. China’s restrictions in rare earths, imposed in response to Trump’s tariffs, awakened the US to the severity of its vulnerability.
For now, neither side appears willing to trigger sweeping new export bans or tariff shocks on the most sensitive critical minerals, given the mutual costs involved and the complexity of re-routing supply chains at speed.
However, geopolitical factors will deepen exclusionary practices across minerals markets this year. End users, under government pressure, are asking traders for materials sourced from one place and not another. And the US and China will increasingly push their companies to avoid infrastructure funded by the other.
Complexity within critical minerals
The key drivers for minerals demand remain long-term fundamental economic shifts: progress towards the energy transition; digitization and the rapid scaling of data centres; and development, urbanization, and energy requirements in emerging markets.
Building energy infrastructure across Africa to a level comparable with the EU or UK, for instance, will require an estimated one billion metric tons of copper.
However, for Trump’s minerals policy to prosper, his administration must better prioritize, and improve its understanding of market fundamentals, which vary considerably across mineral supply.
In 2026, policy narratives that lump ‘critical minerals’ together will obscure the diverse risk profile across commodities. That could lead to blunt interventions that overshoot in some markets and undershoot in others.
For nickel, expansion in capacity has outpaced near term demand from stainless steel and batteries, depressing prices and squeezing higher cost producers.
Lithium projects have come online faster than downstream capacity, and demand can absorb additional production, triggering sharp price corrections despite robust long-term projections. Policy reversals on electric vehicle requirements have also deflated prices and prompted delays to projects, cost cutting and a more cautious approach from investors.
Copper, by contrast, faces significant structural shortfalls. Increasing extraction is vital for achieving energy transition goals and development aspirations. Declining ore grades, rising project complexity, opposition from local communities and permitting delays have all constrained new supply – just as demand accelerates from EVs, data centres and broader industrial electrification.