Why Greenland’s rare earth riches cannot end US dependence on China’s minerals

Despite the United States pushing to acquire Greenland, geological and technical constraints have so far prevented any country – including China – from successfully extracting and processing one of the Danish territory’s main critical minerals, a New York-based mining investor said.

“In the Arctic, one of the popular – the sort of commonly occurring mineral – is called eudialyte,” said Tomasz Nadrowski, portfolio manager at Amvest Terraden, an investment and corporate finance firm specialising in natural resources.

“So far, no one has managed to successfully extract and separate rare earth oxides from eudialyte: not the Germans, not the Finns, not the Chinese, not the Russians.”

“Maybe science will find a solution one day, but not today.”

The stakes are high. If processed at a commercial scale, eudialyte’s rare earth elements could be used to make permanent magnets – essential components in numerous hi-tech products. At present, China has a functional monopoly on the trade of these materials thanks to its unmatched refining capacity, with the country controlling about 90 per cent of the global supply.

That dominance has intensified pressure on the US to diversify supply chains, particularly after Beijing imposed export controls on critical minerals following the trade war Washington launched last April. China had been “very strategic” in its approach to the sector, Nadrowski said, whereas Western countries had treated critical minerals as a “peripheral part” of capital markets – forcing them to now play catch-up.

To counter Beijing’s leverage, Washington has adopted a dual strategy: forging international partnerships and developing domestic capacity. US President Donald Trump has signed critical mineral agreements over the past year with Australia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ukraine.

South China Morning Post