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Since Donald Trump’s return to office, the administration has prioritized critical minerals deals. <\/span>Aaron Schwartz\/Zuma<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Today, the consumer<\/span> protection watchdog group Public Citizen released a report detailing the Trump administration\u2019s secretive web of critical minerals deals around the world. The report<\/a>, exclusively shared with Mother Jones<\/em>, shows that the number of deals the administration has publicly claimed to have does not match up with the number of countries known to have signed these agreements<\/a>. The researchers also detail the many ways these deals can exploit countries experiencing violent conflict\u2014and the ways they might enrich the President\u2019s backers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is now a huge web of deals that are being negotiated behind closed doors without any public scrutiny or oversight,\u201d said Melinda St. Louis, director of Public Citizen\u2019s Global Trade Watch research group. \u201cEven the things they are announcing, the numbers don\u2019t add up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that Donald Trump and his administration are fixated on critical minerals\u2014 things like cobalt, lithium, and graphite<\/a>, used for purposes as wide-ranging as building batteries or building missiles. \u201cIt\u2019s really striking just how much President Trump is personally involved in this,\u201d St. Louis said. Trump has released 12 executive orders related to critical minerals since the start of his second term, and the country has signed on to a bevy of trade agreements related to critical minerals. But, according to Public Citizen\u2019s research, there\u2019s no publicly available database of what exactly all those agreements are, which countries are involved, or who might be profiting. And many of these moves, based on executive orders, don\u2019t require congressional approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe most complete information available is from a February 2026 State Department fact sheet<\/a> that stated that at least 38 international critical minerals agreements have been completed or were pending at that time,\u201d today\u2019s report says. But that fact sheet only names eleven of the countries involved, meaning 27 are unaccounted for. Public Citizen\u2019s review of available documents was only able to confirm the existence of some of those agreements. \u201cLess than half of the memoranda of understanding announced have been made fully public, only two of which were released by the US government,\u201d they wrote. The rest are only public because the other country involved publicized them.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Biden administration prioritized trade deals for critical minerals\u2014like one signed with Japan\u2014with the justification that securing resources for the green transition was a priority. \u201cNow of course under the Trump administration, even the pretext of a clean energy transition is not even part of this. It\u2019s really to seize these minerals for AI, military dominance<\/a>, et cetera,\u201d St. Louis said. In particular, the president is interested in military dominance over China<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTrump and his acolytes all use this very apocalyptic language, that it\u2019s about our security, that it\u2019s about the future of Western Civilization,\u201d Nghia Nguyen, a lead author on the report, said. \u201cI think that says a lot about why the government is throwing so much into it.\u201d Report after report says that military contractors<\/a> are being pressured<\/a> to limit their reliance<\/a> on trade with China for weapons components, and the US government is now seeking out those same minerals wherever they can find them.<\/p>\n Sometimes, Trump\u2019s own family members might profit. A group of American investors including two of the president\u2019s sons got access to a massive untapped reserve of Kazakhstan\u2019s tungsten<\/a> (a mineral widely used in missile warheads, fighter jets, and computer chips) through a government-brokered deal. And agreements with other countries are even more exploitative. The Trump administration\u2019s \u201cminerals for security\u201d deals with Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo sign over portions of those countries\u2019 mining sectors to US actors as they experience active conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n The US deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo may have even been a pretext to make the country amend its constitution. \u201cIn practice, the deal gives sweeping financial and regulatory incentives to U.S. mining companies and grants the U.S. government unprecedented control over Congolese mineral resources,\u201d the Public Citizen report says. \u201cThese are binding agreements devoid of meaningful labor, human rights, or environmental safeguards.\u201d And in Zambia, as the New York TImes reported, the State Department has considered making medical aid contingent on a $2 billion critical minerals deal<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn seeking to encourage mining, the Trump administration is prioritizing speed over corporate accountability and ethical safeguards,\u201d the researchers wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n