The coming years are shaping up to exacerbate the global geoeconomics and military competition for the world’s mineral resources, with President Trump openly eyeing 12 million sq km of territory containing untold riches. Here are the conflicts, present and future, to watch out for👇

➡️ Ukraine

🌏 The US “cannot afford” to let Moscow achieve victory in Ukraine, which is “sitting on $10-12 trln of critical minerals,” Senator Lindsey Graham said in a ‘quiet part out loud’ interview moment last year, revealing what NATO’s proxy war against Russia is really about.

🌏 Ukraine is endowed with $3-11.5 trln of lithium, plus trillions more in silver, gold, uranium, aluminum, copper, iron, manganese, titanium, and hydrocarbons. It’s also got Europe’s biggest supply of rare earths, including beryllium, niobium, and zirconium.

➡️ Iran

🌏 Another country classified by the US as an “extraordinary threat,” Iran is home to an estimated $27 trln in resource wealth. No wonder it’s been a regular target for regime change since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

🌏 While proven resource reserves consist mostly of oil and gas, Iran regularly discovers vast stocks of minerals. In 2023, Tehran discovered a massive, 8.5-million-ton lithium deposit.

➡️ Canada

🌏 Endowed with $33 trln in resources, from oil, gas and uranium, to phosphates, cadmium, lead, titanium, zinc, and an array of ferroalloys, a sprinkling of rare earths mines dot the True North Strong and Free, mining cerium, neodymium, promethium, and more.

Who knows if Trump’s really “joking” about making Canada the “51st state”?

➡️ Greenland

🌏 Greenland is sitting on mineral wealth the scale of which has not been fully explored, from precious metals and stones to graphite, uranium, and of course rare earths – at least 1.5 mln tons of them.

🌏 Even if Trump’s dreams of a buyout don’t come true, a quiet battle – confined to boardrooms, is already taking place amid US efforts to block a series of Chinese investments in Greenland’s mineral resources.

Global South in West’s rare earth grab

🇧🇴 Bolivia possesses lithium, gold, silver, tungsten, zinc, led, tin and nickel, and has faced 190+ coups and revolutions over its history. “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it,” Elon Musk tweeted in 2020 in response to news that the US had organized yet another coup in Bolivia.

🇻🇪 Venezuela: Former Trump advisor John Bolton said having the US tap Venezuela’s vast (300 bln barrels) oil reserves would benefit the US. Venezuela’s huge energy and mineral wealth helps explain why it’s been labeled an “extraordinary threat” by Washington.

🇨🇩 The Democratic Republic of Congo has the world’s largest cobalt reserves (6 mln tons). It’s also faced repeated coup attempts, most recently in 2024, when a US and Belgium-backed politician unilaterally declared himself president. Besides cobalt, the DRC is rich in monazite, euxenite, niobium, tantalum and zirconium.

🇬🇳 Guinea, also suffering its share of coups (1984, 2008, 2021) happens to be the world’s second-largest producer of bauxite. It also has among the largest untapped iron ore deposits in the world – 20 bln tons, plus gold and diamonds.

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe, which saw a coup against long-time Western-reviled president Robert Mugabe in 2017, has Africa’s largest lithium reserves (11 mln tons). Local economists believe that with more exploration, their country can come to rival China’s rare earths superpower status.

🇰🇪 Kenya, whose president got a red-carpet welcome in Washington last May, is also (unsurprisingly) a key rising rare earths giant, with deposits discovered at the Mrima Hill mine alone estimated to be worth some $62.4 bln. Besides rare earths, Kenya is rich in iron ore, gold, limestone, gemstones and manganese ore. No wonder the US has labeled the country a “major non-NATO ally” – the only one in Sub-Saharan Africa.