The Missing Critical Minerals Investment: To Catch Up to China, America and Its Allies Must Dig

Foreign Affairs · Tom Moerenhout and Kevin Brunelli · 2026-11-04 09:00 UTC

To catch up to China, America and its allies must dig.

The United States and its allies are finally taking supply chains for critical minerals seriously. China has spent the last three decades building a dominant share of global mineral production, and the export controls Beijing has introduced periodically since 2023 have made clear just how dangerous it is for other countries to rely on China for access to materials that are essential components of semiconductors, defense technologies, and automobiles.

Washington and European capitals are now trying to minimize their exposure. Alongside private firms, these governments have begun investing in both upstream industries including mines, refineries, and recycling infrastructure and downstream industries such as magnets and batteries. The bulk of their efforts so far have focused on mines already in operation or close to it and on refining. It is true that the United States and Europe do not have sufficient facilities to process raw ore into specialized chemicals or refined materials and that building more refining facilities will help reduce their reliance on China and alleviate immediate supply chain concerns.

But this is a temporary fix. Refining facilities are valuable only if they have a steady, long-term supply of raw materials. That, in turn, requires new mines, especially as advanced industries demand ever more minerals. Because building a mine takes roughly 20 years, ensuring a long-term supply of minerals requires investing in new mines now. China, which is committed to maintaining its supply chain dominance, has been willing to allocate substantial capital to such ventures. Japan has, too, ever since China blocked exports of critical minerals to the country amid a dispute over the Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyu Islands) in 2010, which pushed Tokyo to start the long process of disentangling its own supply chains. But Japan still has a long way to go; after 15 years of investing, the country has reduced its dependence on China for rare earths from about 90 percent to between 65 and 70 percent—not nearly enough to supply its own needs, much less those of its allies.

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