Critical minerals are some of the building blocks of the modern world. In a high-tech, high touch world, we can forget that all our vaunted technology is reliant on critical metals, things like cobalt, lithium and rare earths. Such metals are indispensable for batteries, EVs, renewable power, advanced electronics, and defense systems, and have become as central to state power as oil was in the 20th century…Often the supply chain for these metals originates in or is controlled by countries that are at odds. For the United States and China, critical metals have become a key battleground, and one where Beijing has often won. It’s what I like to call the critical metals conundrum…In Washington, successive U.S. administrations have woken up to the critical metals conundrum. Recently President Donald J. Trump’s administration has taken an aggressive resource nationalist stance when it comes to metals and other natural resources. Project Vault – a new $12 billion stockpile scheme – was unveiled by Trump, who cast minerals as instruments of national resilience in a world where China has weaponized export controls…Vice President J.D. Vance addressed a ministerial gathering on critical metals in February in Washington. Vance reported that Trump told him just after the operation to seize Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro: “As much as data centers and technology and all of these incredible things that we’re all working on matter, fundamentally you still have an economy that runs on real things,” he said, “And there is no realer thing than oil – and I would add to that there’s no realer thing than critical minerals.”…Vance was adamant that the administration he served would wrest the mineral supply chain out of the hands of adversaries and into Washington’s orbit. “The international market for critical minerals is failing,” he said. “It’s failing to create domestic markets or dignified jobs for our labor forces, and it’s failing to keep our nations safe. Supply chains remain brittle and exceptionally concentrated. Asset and commodity prices are persistently depressed, driven downward by forces beyond any individual country’s control.” He continued, “we intend to build an ironclad network of new industrial supply chains to span the entire nation.”…Congo is at the heart of this story. The country supplies roughly 70 percent of the world’s cobalt, and has rich reserves of lithium, gallium, tungsten, gold, tin, and tantalum. Cobalt a mineral that is central to the lithium‑ion battery revolution: It is used in most cellphones and in a great many of our electric vehicles. (The metal is used in the cathode of many lithium‑ion chemistries, stabilizing the battery and allowing for high energy density.) What’s more, the metal has applications for defense and the creation of key industrial alloys…Congo’s strategic relevance is twofold. First, the concentration of cobalt reserves and production there means that disruptions – whether from conflict, labor unrest, or political decisions – can ripple through global supply chains and affect everything from consumer electronics to EV deployment targets…Second, control over Congolese cobalt has become a battleground among foreign corporations and states…Despite occasional speechifying in Washington, China alone has expended the brainpower and capital to assemble the supply chain for a truly mass‑market electric vehicle industry. In the last 30 years Chinese companies and policy banks moved aggressively into Congolese cobalt and Copperbelt mining while U.S. and European firms retrenched…Beijing now controls 70 percent of the world’s rare earths mining, some 80 percent of the world’s cobalt supply, and 90 percent of global critical metals processing…In my book, I show how the United States and Europe largely slumbered through this period as China grew in influence in Congo and other countries; how they continued to sleep even as Beijing built a vertically integrated battery and EV industry; and how they have only just begun to wake up to the dangers of the supply chain in its current form…Coordination with U.S. allies is deepening: the new executive order “makes clear that the United States is not pursuing an America‑only approach,” instead embedding minerals into “a framework of allied cooperation, trade negotiation, and shared supply chain resilience.” …But the problem that the U.S. currently faces is that it lacks sufficient processing capabilities and it remains in second place to China in nearly all aspects of the critical metals supply chain.