2/3/2026
By Charles Payne, CEO & Principal Analyst

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump Administration will host the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial at the Department of State.

This is a major event that will not only underscore the urgency, but also highlight a public-private partnership approach that enables large businesses to put skin in the game.

Recent Trump Administration efforts.

Strategic Blunder

This is an excerpt from CSIS underscoring the historical importance of strategic resources in armed conflicts since WWI and how America lost sight of this.

World War I

World War I exposed the fragility of the United States’ own critical mineral supply chains. In 1914, the United States was among the world’s leading mineral producers, accounting for approximately 55 percent of global copper output, 40 percent of coal and iron, and 30 percent of lead and zinc. Yet domestic abundance masked deeper vulnerabilities: The United States lacked the international partnerships, strategic stockpiles, and coordinating mechanisms required for wartime mobilization.

Only in the final phase of the war did the federal government take sweeping, decisive action on critical minerals. The War Industries Board was established in July 1917 to coordinate U.S. industrial production by establishing priorities, setting prices, and standardizing goods to ensure the nation and its allies were adequately supplied for the war effort. In October 1918, the War Minerals Stimulation Law became the first large-scale U.S. attempt to intervene in mineral markets for national security.

The Great Depression further compounded this unpreparedness. Following the October 1929 stock market crash, global economic activity collapsed, driving down demand for nearly all minerals. Commodity prices plunged, and mining operations across the country contracted sharply. Gold was the lone exception. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt nationalized gold through the Emergency Banking Act after the Federal Reserve Bank of New York could no longer honor currency-to-gold conversions. The subsequent Gold Reserve Act of 1934 reset the price of gold and effectively resurrected the gold standard, restoring financial links between the United States and the global economy, as domestic conditions began to stabilize.

World War II

Just as the United States’ economy began to stabilize following the Great Depression, World War II erupted in Europe. Although the United States had not yet entered the conflict, policymakers increasingly viewed U.S. involvement as inevitable and moved to avoid the supply failures that had plagued World War I.

The Korean War

The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 forced the United States into a renewed phase of emergency economic mobilization and dramatically reshaped federal critical minerals policy. Within months, Congress appropriated $2.9 billion for emergency stockpile purchases and enacted the Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950, granting the president sweeping authority to mobilize U.S. industry for national defense.

The Cold War: 1960s

By the early 1960s, a degree of complacency had set in regarding U.S. materials policy. The hard lessons of World Wars I and II had receded, and raw materials were no longer viewed as an immediate constraint on national power. At the same time, the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 ushered in an era of intense scientific and technological competition, compelling the United States to redirect substantial resources toward space exploration and related technologies. Against this backdrop, policymakers began to reassess a strategic stockpile that had ballooned rapidly during the Korean War and the early Cold War.

The Cold War: 1970s

After the heavy stockpile drawdowns of the 1960s, the 1970s brought renewed awareness of U.S. material vulnerabilities—but relatively little decisive action. A series of late-1960s shocks, including the UN sanctions on Rhodesia and the widespread labor disruptions in Canada, had forced Washington to confront the erosion of its domestic minerals base. By 1970, the United States consumed roughly 35 percent of the world’s mineral output while contributing only marginally to global production.

The Cold War: 1980s

The early 1980s exposed deep structural weaknesses in the U.S. minerals base. Domestic production stagnated or declined, and a global recession shuttered mines nationwide. These trends revived congressional concern that the United States was entering a period of heightened strategic vulnerability, particularly as dependence on foreign sources of critical and strategic minerals continued to rise. Congress responded with the National Materials and Minerals Policy, Research and Development Act of 1980 — the second comprehensive national minerals policy after the 1970 Mining and Minerals Policy Act.

1990s

With the end of the Cold War, the long-running contraction of U.S. materials planning — underway since the 1960s — reached its apex. Defense planners increasingly assumed that future conflicts would be shorter, more mobile, and supported by reliable foreign suppliers. This shift led to a sharp reduction in stockpile requirements, signaling a departure from the massive wartime reserves of the past.

Modern Warfare

Rare earths are critical for the national security of the United States and, by extension, the entire world.

Time to Mine

It's not only the defense sector that needs a steady supply of rare earths; several technology companies do as well. Andreessen Horowitz recognized this last year.

The good news is that rare earths aren’t rare, but foresight has been. It's time to put the catch up effort into overdrive.

Charles Payne
Wall Street Strategies

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