Cobalt
Trump 2.0 won't reverse Biden's critical minerals push
Reuters - November 21, 2024
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, ...
Donald Trump has described the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a "green scam" and vowed to repeal it after he returns to the White House in January…This is bad news for sectors such as electric vehicles (EV) and wind power, which have been major recipients of the Biden administration's signature $369 billion energy transition legislation…But some of the "new green deal" money has also been channeled to the U.S. industrial base, such as the $75 million allocated for an upgrade of Constellium's aluminium rolling mill in West Virginia…Will this too be clawed back? It seems unlikely because when it comes to rebuilding U.S. industrial capacity and cutting the country's critical minerals dependency on China, there is remarkable cross-party consensus…Indeed, it was then-President Trump who in 2020 declared the country's "undue reliance" on "foreign adversaries" for critical minerals a national emergency…Trump in his second presidency is unlikely to reverse the drive to metallic self-sufficiency. He may even prove to be an accelerator…Both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have pumped billions of dollars into rebuilding U.S. metals capacity…Seventeen new U.S. battery plants have been announced since the IRA came into effect in July 2022, boosting pipeline capacity by 68% through 2030, according to research house Benchmark Mineral Intelligence…When it comes to investing in the metals needed to supply those gigafactories, most of the projects receiving federal funds are those looking to enhance existing recycling capacity…New smelting capacity needs new mines to supply it and that's where the U.S. minerals investment boom is still struggling to build momentum…Most of the funds committed to the mining sector have been directed at lithium, both for new mines such as Lithium Americas' Thacker Pass and multiple projects experimenting with direct extraction technology…The Biden administration has struggled to reconcile its desire to produce the metals needed for the green energy transition with its environmental credentials…Trump has already promised to reverse Biden's 20-year ban on mining in the Superior National Forest in Minnesota in "about 10 to 15 minutes" of taking office…That in itself won't be a green light for the Twin Metals project, which would still have to get state permitting sign-off, but it's a sign that the Trump administration won't be hobbled by the green-on-green cabinet conflict that characterised the last four years…A new Trump administration is also likely to take a much tougher line on critical metal imports from entities linked to China…Indeed, every sign so far is that Trump 2.0 will double down on the U.S. minerals self-sufficiency drive, even if it means accepting that not all of the IRA funds are a "green scam