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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.”

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 Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, would “codify the methodology used in a 2017 executive order that was signed by President Donald Trump ‘to designate a list of critical minerals and require that list to be updated at least every three years.’ The measure also would require a nationwide resource assessments for every critical mineral and the implementation of ‘several practical, common sense permitting reforms for the Department of the Interior (DOI) and Department of Agriculture Forest Service to reduce delays in the federal process.’”

The bill was dropped on May 2nd, the same day government officials met with representatives of carmakers, mining companies and consultants to discuss the need to streamline U.S. mineral resource policy against a growing sense that the United States is becoming a “bystander” in the current battery arms race.

The American Mineral Security Act, similar versions of which Sen. Murkowski had introduced in previous Congresses, would: