The Strategic Execution Gap: Why America Can Find Critical Minerals - and Still Lose Them

Sep 6, 2026 | Rare Earth Exchanges
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Critical minerals are turning foreign ministries into business-development organizations. Embassies, development banks, export-credit agencies, and political leaders will increasingly compete to secure mining concessions, infrastructure, financing, processing, and offtake agreements. Low- and middle-income resource countries will simultaneously demand something more: not simply foreign companies extracting their minerals, but investment that helps them move up the value chain.