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In a new piece for The Hill, ARPN’s Dan McGroarty zeroes in on the inter-relationship of trade and resource policy, which has been an increasingly recurring theme over the past few months.

McGroarty argues that the removal of U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum coming from Mexico and Canada, which have been a “dead weight on the ratification of the USMCA trade deal meant to replace NAFTA,” could “strengthen the president’s hand in the China trade talks” and ultimately “super-charge a North American resource renaissance.” 

He writes:

“A new deal that lifted the tariffs would (…) clear the way for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to work together to encourage the development of critical minerals — that rapidly-changing group of metals and minerals essential to advanced technology, including everything from laptops and LEDs, wind and solar power, EV batteries and energy storage, to smart phones and smart bombs.

With the U.S. dependent on China as its primary supplier of 22 of the 35 critical minerals the Trump administration has deemed ‘essential to the national economy and national security,’ new sources of North American supply could (…) deprive China of the leverage it has to limit or even cut off U.S. critical mineral supplies.”

A joint focus on critical minerals fueled by the U.S.’s and Canada’s mineral riches and  Mexico’s long history of mining copper and gold that brings with it great potential of co-product  access could “could energize new methods of mining, refining, reclamation and recycling that could bring new supply online to meet surging metals demand.”

Ultimately, lifting the above-referenced tariffs could have benefits that stretch beyond the three countries.

Concludes McGroarty:

“So, while the headlines are dominated by U.S.-China trade war, watch for news on the North American trade front. If the president acts now to lift U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, opening the path to the passage of the USMCA — linking three nations with a combined GDP of $25 trillion –— trade friction will give way to a new era of trade expansion and economic growth. Trade peace in North America may be just the signal the president wants to send as trade war looms with China.”

While 2018 brought the inter-relationship between trade and resource policy to the forefront, this trend is continuing in 2019.  

Last week, the White House announced sanctions on Iranian metals, which represent the Tehran regime’s biggest source of export revenue aside from petroleum.  The sanctions on Iran’s iron, steel, aluminum and copper sectors represent the U.S. administration’s latest effort to pressure Tehran over its “funding and support for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorist groups and networks, campaigns of regional aggression, and military expansion” in the Middle East.

Iran may – thankfully – not rank as a top supplier for U.S. domestic consumers of the targeted metals.  However, these latest developments should serve as another reminder that securing domestic supplies of mineral resources should be a top priority.

ARPN’s Dan McGroarty invoked Iran in his first testimony before Congress on behalf of ARPN in 2011:

“Now, to be sure, we live in a globalized economy, and indeed — if the U.S. were to simply stop mining copper today – there are known copper prospects in a number of countries. We might turn to Chile, Peru and the Philippines for increased copper supply. Then again, world demand might be met via development of known copper reserves in Russia, Angola, Afghanistan, DRC Congo, or China – including decisions taken in Beijing to exploit copper reserves in the Tibet Autonomous Region. And there is copper in Pakistan and Iran. With the exception of Pakistan — rated “Partly Free” — all of the latter group are rated “Not Free” in the current Freedom House index. So while the world copper market does offer choices, we may well find many of those choices unpalatable from a policy perspective.”

Removing obstacles to a greater degree of resource independence should be the order of the day, but while we’ve seen some incremental progress, efforts to make substantial changes to our nation’s mineral resource policy framework have in the past been largely derailed or put off.

“We cannot maintain our modern economy without a steady supply of metals and minerals. Those we do not possess here at home, we must source from other countries. But those we possess but choose not to produce perpetuate a needless foreign dependence – leverage that other nations may well use to America’s disadvantage.”

Evolving out of its 2017 report “The Growing Role of Minerals and Metals for a Low Carbon Future”, which found that the sought-after transition to a “low-carbon future will be significantly more mineral intensive than a business as usual scenario,” the World Bank developed its “Climate-Smart Mining” initiative, which ARPN discussed a few weeks ago. (…) more

As pressures mount for the United States to bolster its position as a non-fuel mineral raw materials producer amidst the ongoing battery tech revolution, a group of U.S. Senators have introduced legislation to boost domestic production of critical minerals. The legislation, sponsored by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and (…) more

In an interview with Fox and Friends, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) discusses the path to what he terms a major trade victory for the U.S.  In order for this to happen, he believes removing the Sec. 232 tariffs from the USMCA, the new and yet-to-be-ratified U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal to replace NAFTA struck in (…) more

Followers of ARPN have long known that China is the big elephant in the room.  In a piece for the Wall Street Journal, Ezekiel Emanuel, Amy Gadsden and Scott Moore lament that while there is a growing  awareness that China may be the – in the words of Sec. of State Mike Pompeo “greatest challenge that (…) more

In the past few months, we have seen indications for a growing awareness of the need for mineral resource policy reform. Much emphasis has —rightfully — been placed on the national security aspects of our over-reliance on foreign mineral resources, as well as the nascent realization that the pursuit of the green energy transition is (…) more

Bearing testimony to a nascent – and long-overdue – broader awareness of our nation’s over-reliance on foreign mineral resources, three U.S. senators have introduced new legislation aimed to reduce U.S. dependence on Chinese imports of rare earth elements (REEs). REEs are key components of a wide range of high-tech products across all walks of life (…) more

ARPN expert panel member and managing director of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence Simon Moores must have struck a nerve when he called the U.S. a “bystander” in the current battery arms race during a recent Congressional hearing. His message  —  “Those who control these critical raw materials and those who possess the manufacturing and processing know how, will (…) more

Last week, the Australian Federal Government released its “Critical Minerals Strategy 2019” – a blueprint aimed at positioning “Australia as a leading global supplier of the minerals that will underpin the industries of the future” – which according to the Department of Industry, Innovation and Sciences’s press release, includes the agritech, aerospace, defence, renewable energy and telecommunications industries. (…) more