The U.S. military operation in Venezuela has thrust critical minerals into the center of American foreign policy, as the Trump administration openly links national security to resource control.
While U.S. officials say the operation aimed to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on narcoterrorism charges, President Donald Trump has repeatedly pointed to the country’s natural resources. Meanwhile, senior officials have spoken openly about Venezuela’s oil, metals, and mineral potential.
The focus extends beyond hydrocarbons. Additionally, the administration appears increasingly interested in critical minerals tied to artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and data-center infrastructure.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that Venezuela holds a wide range of critical minerals and once had a strong mining sector. He added that the Trump administration intends to revive that history. Subsequently, Trump again raised the possibility of annexing Greenland on national security grounds, citing its mineral wealth.
Together, the statements have fueled speculation that Washington is prepared to use force to secure future mineral supplies.
Experts say that assumption is premature.
DFD consulted six international development and supply-chain specialists, and the consensus was clear. However, they do not believe Venezuela or Greenland offers a realistic shortcut to mineral independence.
The concern driving U.S. policy is well established. China currently produces roughly 90 per cent of the world’s critical minerals, many of which support robotics, renewable energy systems, and advanced computing.
Consequently, Washington has accelerated efforts to diversify supply chains. The federal government has taken stakes in domestic rare-earth projects and issued loans to mining ventures.
Taking control of foreign territories would mark a far more aggressive step. Additionally, experts argue it would introduce new risks without solving core bottlenecks.
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Venezuela presents steep political challenge
Bentley Allan, a Johns Hopkins University professor who studies global supply chains, said opportunities in critical minerals exist elsewhere, not in Venezuela or Greenland. He described both locations as logistically and politically unattractive.
Venezuela presents the steeper political challenge.
Years of instability, sanctions, and institutional decay have already discouraged oil producers from operating there. Additionally, experts say mining companies face similar concerns. Yale University professor David Simon explained that investors require predictable governance before committing capital. He noted that even after costly interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. still struggles to secure stable access to regional resources.
Consequently, establishing investor confidence in Venezuela would likely take years, not months. Greenland poses different problems. The territory remains politically stable, but geography limits what mining can realistically deliver. However, most known mineral deposits lie under ice sheets or offshore waters.
Short extraction seasons further constrain production. Additionally, Arctic winters leave miners with only a few workable months each year. Transportation adds another hurdle. Minerals typically must be flown out, which sharply raises costs. Allan pointed to northern Canada, where gold mining works because an entire season’s output can fit on a single aircraft.
Rare earths do not offer that efficiency. Even if extraction challenges were solved, experts say the larger obstacle lies elsewhere.
Processing and refining remain the dominant choke points in global mineral supply chains. Meanwhile, China controls those stages largely because it invested early and accepted significant environmental damage.
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US is far from meeting domestic demand
Jay Pelosky, founder of investment consulting firm TPW Advisory, said mineral dominance depends less on mining than on refining capacity. He explained that raw materials hold limited value without domestic processing. Neither Venezuela nor Greenland has refining infrastructure comparable to China’s. Additionally, building that capacity requires regulatory certainty, skilled labor, and long timelines.
The U.S. has begun addressing that gap. Trump issued an executive order in March aimed at speeding up permitting and expanding federal land access for processing facilities. However, industry specialists say those measures represent only an initial step.
Reed Blakemore, who leads critical-minerals research at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, estimated it will take two to five years to build sufficient domestic capacity. He added that the U.S. remains far from meeting demand today.
Meanwhile, the geopolitical consequences of a force-based strategy could outweigh any resource gains. Critical minerals trade depends on international cooperation. Conversely, aggressive territorial moves risk alienating allies who control more accessible reserves.
The administration’s tariff policies have already unsettled the rare-earths industry. Additionally, manufacturers worry that trade friction could disrupt long-term supply agreements. Allan argued that the most credible response would involve multinational partnerships. He said cooperation should focus on both mining and processing, rather than unilateral action.
Experts warn that militarized resource policy could undermine those alliances. Furthermore, instability may push producing nations closer to China, not away from it.
The debate also exposes a timing mismatch.
Even optimistic projections suggest that Venezuelan or Greenlandic minerals would not meaningfully affect U.S. supply chains for several years. Meanwhile, AI infrastructure and data-center demand continues to surge.
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Trump has taken steps to weaken China’s dominance
As a result, analysts see domestic processing investment and allied coordination as more practical solutions. However, those paths lack the immediacy of headline-driven action.
For now, the administration’s rhetoric has reshaped the conversation. It has moved critical minerals from trade policy into the realm of hard power.
In 2024 and 2025, the Trump administration pursued a more interventionist strategy to weaken China’s dominance in critical minerals, pairing faster permitting with direct financial involvement. Additionally, it leaned heavily on the FAST-41 program, which allows the federal government to coordinate multi-agency reviews and publicly track timelines for major infrastructure and mining projects.
Subsequently, several mining proposals tied to antimony, rare earths, and battery metals were added to the FAST-41 pipeline to shorten approval windows. Officials framed the effort as a national security measure rather than a traditional industrial policy. However, critics noted that permitting speed alone does not guarantee production.
The administration also moved beyond loans and grants into equity participation. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense took a preferred equity stake in MP Materials (NYSE: MP), the owner of the Mountain Pass rare earth mine, giving Washington direct exposure to domestic rare-earth output. In addition, the Department of Energy acquired equity and warrant positions in Lithium Americas (TSE: LAC), tied to the Thacker Pass lithium project in Nevada.
Smaller companies adjusted their strategies to align with federal priorities. NevGold Corp (CVE: NAU) (OTCMKTS: NAUFF) (FRA: 5E50), traditionally focused on gold, expanded its messaging to emphasize antimony, a metal used in defense systems and energy storage. Consequently, positioning projects as dual-use assets has become a way for juniors to attract government interest and potential funding.
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