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President Trump on Friday announced a slate of deals and investments that aim to bolster mining, something the administration has said will boost the economy and secure supply chains.
Trump said during a mining roundtable that the Defense Department would sign a $1.4 billion loan agreement with Sila Nanotechnologies to build a battery facility in Washington state. The department is also investing $400 million to advance production of scandium, which Trump described as an aerospace and defense material, in Australia and another $150 million in a rare earth magnet facility in Minnesota.
He also said the U.S. Export-Import Bank is “working to provide” more than $1 billion to finance Ivanhoe Electric’s copper mine in Arizona and would also seek to support an Alabama graphite project and a California Boron facility.
He also said that the administration would be doling out $100 million for mining schools to “train the next generation of American miners.”
“Together we’re reawakening the spirit of the Gold Rush,” Trump said. “Very simply, we’re making mining great again.”
The push for more U.S. minerals comes as China has significant control over much of the world’s supply chains as a major miner, refiner and trader of these materials.
Minerals are used in a range of technologies including weapons, semiconductors and renewable energy.
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