The American president Donald Trump states that US companies will now have access to the vast oil reserves from Venezuela. But other commodities in the country also caught the attention of its government.
Experts claim that the Venezuela has unverified quantities of minerals, year and potentially elements of rare earths.
These raw materials are indispensable for several sectors, from defense has technologyand the American government has repeatedly emphasized its importance for national security two United States.
But while Washington may aspire to secure supplies of Venezuela’s critical elements, it is an uphill task, experts say, and would not do much to strengthen the supply chain two United States.
A amount ea feasibility economics of Venezuela’s mineral resources are uncertain. Companies also face great risks when exploring minerals in Venezuela without guarantees consistent security standards.
According to experts, many of these regions have guerrillas e armed groups involved in illegal gold mining. Energy-intensive extraction of rare earths can also harm the environment.
“There is an awareness within the administration that even beyond oil, there is broader value in natural resources in the country,” said Reed Blakemore, director of research at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.
“However, if we are talking about the conditions under which we are able to exploit these mineral resources and bring them to market, the story is much more complex,” Blakemore said. “And, frankly, see you later complex than the history of oil.”
China’s role
Even if American companies tried to exploit Venezuela’s rare earths, extracting them from the ground is only part of the process. These materials are generally sent to China to be refined.
According to the International Energy Agency, the China was responsible for more than 90% of global refining of rare earths in 2024.
The country maintains a virtual monopoly in the processing and refining of these materials due to decades of government subsidies, industry expansion, and lax environmental regulations.
Rare earths have become one of the main friction points in trade tensions between the US and China.
Last year, Beijing implemented some export controls about rare earths during trade disputes, raising concerns about the lack of chains secure supply of these essential materials in the United States.
“China still holds a near-unique capacity to process rare earth metals, and this industrial and geopolitical advantage cannot be overcome overnight,” said Joel Dodge, director of industrial policy and economic security at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator.
Critical Minerals
The United States Geological Survey designates 60 “Critical Minerals” vital to the economic security e national.
These critical minerals include a mixture of elements such as aluminum, cobalt, copper, lead and nickel.
The list also includes 15 rare earth elementssuch as cerium, dysprosium, neodymium and samarium. Rare earths refer to a category of 17 metal elements specific.
These raw materials are essential inputs em technologies in everyday life, such as phones, batteries and TV screens, as well as in military and defense equipment, such as lasers, fighter jets and missiles.
The term “rare earths” is a misnomer, as these elements are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, according to Julie Klinger, a geographer and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But extracting and refining them is the hard part.
In recent years, American lawmakers have expressed concern about the dependence of the country in relation to imports of these essential elements.
There have been efforts to develop rare earths mining and refining in the United States, but the timeline for these projects can take years, if not decades.
And Venezuela
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) does not include Venezuela on its list of countries with rare earth elements (the list includes countries such as China, the United States, Brazil and Greenland, among others).
Two and a half decades of government by Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela created a information gap about the extent of the country’s resources, experts say.
Still, experts believe that Venezuela has deposits of some mineralssuch as coltan — from which the metals tantalum and niobium are extracted — and bauxite, which can contain aluminum and gallium. Tantalum, niobium, aluminum and gallium are all considered critical minerals by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
In 2009, Chavez exalted the country’s natural resources, including “blue gold”nickname given to coltan. That year, Chávez stated that a large reserve of coltan had been discovered in the country, according to Reuters.
In 2016, Maduro established the Orinoco Mining Arca strip of land in Venezuela designated for mineral exploration and production. But the region has been plagued by illegal mining.
“Although the country has large deposits of mineral resources, it is hampered by a combination of poor geological data, low-skilled labor, organized crime, lack of investment and an unstable political environment,” said Sung Choi, metals and mining analyst at BloombergNEF, in a note.
“Despite its current geological potential, Venezuela is unlikely to play a significant role in the critical minerals sector for at least the next decade,” Choi said.
