His trip follows on the heels of one earlier this month when another senior US official, this time CIA Deputy Director, Michael Ellis, made a much less ‘visible’ trip aboard a C-17 military cargo plane that flew into neighbouring Afghanistan’s Bagram airbase from Qatar.
It was only as a result of a report by Afghanistan’s “Khaama Press” that the CIA visit made the news, along with a claim that the ruling Taliban in the country was prepared to hand the strategic base back to the Americans and the US embassy in Kabul was undergoing a sprucing up perhaps in preparation for reopening.
On the face of it both visits might at first glance appear to have little in common apart from the fact that Pakistan and Afghanistan border each other.
But look again and it’s worth noting that both regional neighbours are home to a vast, largely untapped wealth of natural resources including rare and critical minerals that have all but topped the geopolitical agenda since Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In the case of Pakistan – according to its government – the country’s mineral wealth is currently estimated at an eyewatering $8 trillion. This includes massive copper and gold deposits as well as critical minerals such as lithium, that stretch across more than 230,000 square miles, more than twice the size of the UK.
Next door in Afghanistan meanwhile, according to the Geneva-based Global Initiative against Transnational Crime, the country “sits on an estimated 2.2 billion tonnes of iron ore, 60 million tonnes of copper, 183 million tonnes of aluminium, and vast reserves of rare earth elements such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium.”
In a 2010 Pentagon memo, which examined Afghanistan’s mineral potential it was estimated that lithium there was worth easily more than $1 trillion, prompting the report to dub it the “Saudi Arabia of Lithium.”
Dela wa Monga, an artisanal miner, holds a cobalt stone at the Shabara artisanal mine near Kolwezi. Some 20,000 people work at Shabara, in shifts of 5,000 at a time
Global shift
Having such reserves is one thing, extracting them is of course something else again, but what no one disputes is that copper and lithium, among many other minerals, are crucial to the global shift towards renewable energy and reliance on digital technologies.
The race then is on to secure supplies of such minerals, which according to data cited by The Economist magazine, suggests that about a fifth of which thought to be required by 2035 have yet to be found.
As the magazine also recently highlighted, in the coming decades the rise of renewables and electric cars will require huge amounts of these critical materials.
The International Energy Agency, an official forecaster, estimates that if countries stick to their current climate pledges, annual demand for rare earths, nickel, cobalt and lithium will grow by 62%, 73%, 80% and 400%, respectively, by 2040. Even demand for copper, which is already high, is projected to rise by one-third over the period, to 37m tonnes
Hardly surprising then that billions of dollars and much diplomatic manoeuvring is underway by major powers to make sure they have their share of the “critical mineral pie.”
It would be hard to overstate the extent to which securing this vast mineral wealth currently preoccupies and shapes the current Trump administration’s geopolitical strategy.
In a recent op-ed article for the Financial Times (FT), Thea Riofrancos, political scientist and author of a forthcoming book ‘Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism’ put Washington’s approach into perspective.
Riofrancos reminded of how on inauguration day, Trump released an executive order, “Unleashing American Energy” that seeks to secure “America’s mineral dominance”.
He then went on to issue a related order “addressing the threat to national security from imports of copper” and, threatened to seize Greenland and annex Canada, which have substantial mineral wealth.
Since then of course Trump has also strongarmed Ukraine into a minerals “deal”. Though these past days that “deal” had not moved beyond a “memorandum of intent.”
Should it in fact come to fruition, Washington would expect to gain privileged access to Ukraine’s considerable natural resources by way of repayment for US military support for the country over the past three years.
While the memorandum supposedly represents a step towards repairing ties between Kyiv and Washington, it did not stop both Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday from insisting the US will walk away from efforts to broker a Russia – Ukraine peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress soon.
Things then are not going well in US- Ukraine relations. But this has not stopped other countries endowed with vast quantities of critical natural resources sensing that providing access to them might be a new sweet spot in geopolitical relations with the Trump administration.
U.S. President Donald Trump, accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Ukraine template
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the government there led by Felix Tshisekedi has taken the Ukraine template to draw up its own critical minerals deal with the US.
As Kinshasa sees it, this would provide privileged access for US companies to abundant cobalt and copper reserves in exchange for security assistance in its fight with the M23 rebel group supported by neighbouring Rwanda, which itself has eyes on the vast resources’ wealth of eastern Congo’s North Kivu Province.
Such has been the violence in the region that the European Parliament has voted to suspend a critical minerals deal it signed with Rwanda last year because of its support of M23.
DR Congo is just one of many places with an abundance of resources that the global economy increasingly needs.
But just what exactly are these rare earth or critical minerals and what are they used for?
In short, rare earth minerals are a group of 17 minerals that share similar chemical properties and are essential for many modern technologies, from electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines to medical equipment.
Their ability to conduct electricity, generate magnetic fields and strength makes them indispensable for modern industry.
As for critical materials (ie, processed substances) and critical minerals (naturally occurring ones), there is no single definition. America, the EU and Britain, for example, all have slightly different lists of the materials they deem “critical.”
The defining feature of critical materials and rare earths says The Economist is “not that they are necessarily rare in the earth’s crust… but they are often tricky to extract.”
For some, like copper, it is because they have been mined industrially for decades: a lot of big mines are old and being depleted; new mines tend to be in places that are politically unstable or hard to reach
Due to increasing demand, these strategic resources are driving trade disputes and investments around the world. The minerals market too is dominated by China, which worries Western powers, meaning the US and Europe are trying to reduce their dependence and secure new sources of supply.
“We have enough rare earths, but because of this huge economic competition, the West has realised that China controls all the supply chains,” says Professor Sophia Kalantzakos, an expert in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at NYU Abu Dhabi.
Rising geopolitical tensions have fuelled a rise in state intervention and protectionism “not seen since the first half of the 20th century in western democracies”, say other analysts like global risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
“The fracturing geopolitical landscape and the fallout from major shocks like the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have spurred an acceleration of policies aimed at acquiring the minerals needed to power the tech and defence industries, as well as the green transition to bolster energy security,” explained Jimena Blanco, chief analyst at Verisk Maplecroft speaking to the FT last year.
Trade agreement
Through strategic investments and long-term trade agreements, China has long secured access to mineral resources across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, making itself the central player in the global energy transition.
This leaves the EU, but most notably right now the US, racing to reduce their dependence on China by forging new mineral strategies.
The standoff has only intensified as a result of the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing and the imposition of tit for tat tariffs.
Just these past days in another of his ‘executive orders’ Trump has also threatened to apply tariffs on critical minerals, a move that further ratchets up tensions with Beijing and opens a new front in the global trade war that has rattled markets.
In the latest directive, Trump has ordered the US commerce department to study the critical mineral supply chains and come up with ways to boost American production while cutting reliance on imports.
The move comes too after China suspended exports of certain rare earth metals and rare earth magnets used in the defence, robotics and energy industries to buyers around the world.
Trump’s insistence on re-examining “supply chains,” takes us back to Pakistan and Afghanistan and the recent visits there by senior US officials.
Neither are countries with which Washington has had the best of relationships of late, but during his visit Eric Meyer, Senior Bureau Official for the State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, made clear in a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, that US companies were keen to invest in the country’s untapped mineral reserves.
Should this happen and mining goes ahead, security will be a massive challenges points out Michael Kugelman writer of Foreign Policy magazine’s South Asia Brief.
“Mining firms often accept high risks, given the volatile terrain in which they operate. But Pakistan’s conditions are especially dangerous for prospective mining investors. The country suffered 521 terrorist attacks last year, a 70 percent increase from 2023,” warned Kugelman.
Next door in Afghanistan meanwhile, there has been no clarity on whether the visit by CIA deputy director Michael Ellis involved any discussions about access to the country’s natural resources wealth.
That said, removing existing bounties on the heads of Taliban leaders and an uptick in US contact including the possible reopening of the embassy there suggests something is afoot.
Analysts say too that America is keen to counter China’s already established influence in the country and any opportunity to improve or secure control of critical mineral supply chains is likely on the US agenda.
Such competition for the world’s natural resources is nothing new of course. Ever since the end of the Second World war, recent history has been replete with the strategic jostling for oil, minerals, and water, which has often dictated international relations and economic policies.
But what is unfolding today is a heating up of global rivalry as it heads into a new phase and the international economy fractures back into power blocs.
‘Critical for who?’
For some, like political scientist and author Thea Riofrancos, the whole idea of “critical minerals” however shuts down an important debate.
“Critical for who? And extracted for whose benefit and whose expense?” she asked in her recent FT opinion piece.
‘“Instead of “mineral dominance” we need international agreements on environmental and social standards and policies that reduce mineral demand,” Riofrancos argues, a point some would doubtless agree with.
For the moment though things are moving in a very different trajectory, as the global stage confronts heightened challenges in securing and managing essential resources, a struggle deeply intertwined with geopolitical rivalries.
Follow the minerals and by logical extension, the money, seems to be the prevailing strategy right now. Even if that means running the risk of creating more world disorder