The Geopolitics of Resources: The Critical Minerals

Abstract

In the context of COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on mobility, the interruptions on the global supply chains generated a steep problem for all economies. To this, other challenges like the trade war between USA and China, the natural disasters, and the recent military conflict in Ukraine have added new blockages of supply with raw materials and intermediary goods, which impacted an accelerated escalation of prices for essential products.

The high-tech fields with high value added contain rare goods, which require predictability of supply and affordable costs. Either we talk about the green transition, the digitalization or, so to speak, the fourth industrial revolution, these processes envisage products with high-tech input. No transformational process could be realized in energy, manufacturing, or the economy, as a whole, if the access to basic resources remains restricted.

This chapter analyzes the global access to critical minerals, which are in demand for producing future technologies, with a particular view on the USA–China relationship and the competition for mineral resources. In the context of the new national security strategy of the USA, it is relevant to observe how the largest economy in the world considers increasing access to these minerals, what are their advantages and vulnerabilities with which they might confront in the global competitiveness race, and which are the opportunities that this field is providing.