On 20 December 2017, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reverse US’s dependence on other countries for critical minerals.
The order aims to identify new sources of critical minerals, ensure that miners and producers have access to the best data and streamline the leasing and permitting process to expedite production, reprocessing and recycling of minerals at all levels of the supply chain.
The order follows the publication of a report prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey demonstrating that the U.S. is most reliant on China for critical minerals with at least 20 of these sourced exclusively in China. Other countries such as Russia, South Africa, Brazil and Canada also supply many critical minerals. The report updates the previous USGS report published in 1973.
For each of the mineral commodities taken into consideration, the USGS describes how the commodity is used, the location of identified resources and their distribution nationally and globally, the state of current geologic knowledge, potential for finding additional deposits, and geoenvironmental issues that may be related to the production and uses of these mineral commodities.
To read more, please click here.
For more information on the report published by the USGS, please click here.