As the energy transition, EV development, and AI-race all converge to a head, the role of critical minerals cannot be understated. Over the last year, the demand for these minerals have placed them in the center of geopolitics. 

These domestic shifts are unfolding against a volatile international backdrop where critical minerals are increasingly treated as strategic leverage. China’s tightening export controls for minerals and related technologies used in semiconductors, batteries, and defense systems has reinforced the risks of single-point dependencies—and heightened the urgency of building U.S.-based and allied processing capacity. At the same time, these complex supply chains require strategic international partnerships, and a long-term approach to build the workforce, processing power, and mining sites.

As these fields heat up, so does demand for domestic procurement and manufacturing - but, is this still feasible? Ongoing international conversations are centering around both anti-competition and begrudging collaboration, as the procurement process, supply chain, and processing power diverge geographically. The permitting question so far heavily focuses on renewables, but what does a revitalized process look like for critical minerals?