For decades, the Western world largely operated under a simple assumption: if a mineral could be bought somewhere in the world at a competitive price, there was little reason to worry about where it came from…That assumption is now being challenged…The growing importance of critical minerals, rising geopolitical tensions, fragile global supply chains and increasing demand for everything from artificial intelligence infrastructure to defense systems, electric vehicles and energy infrastructure are forcing governments to rethink how they secure the raw materials their economies depend on… the central issue is not necessarily whether the world has enough minerals underground…The problem is whether those minerals can actually be produced, processed and delivered through a secure supply chain …A mineral becomes strategically important not simply because it is rare, but because a country may lack a secure supply chain for it…That supply chain can extend through numerous stages: exploration, mining, processing, refining, manufacturing components and ultimately incorporating those components into sophisticated products …A mineral does not need to be scarce in geological terms to be strategically critical…It only needs to be controlled by a small number of suppliers…Van Dyke’s broader argument is that countries are increasingly asking a different questions…What happens if we suddenly cannot buy this mineral from our traditional supplier?…“Critical minerals have become geopolitical weapons.”…And once governments understand that vulnerability, their priorities change…The West used to prioritize returns. China prioritized supply security …“In the last 50 years in the West, we didn’t develop the boring deposits that weren’t going to make us a sufficient return on investment.”…China, meanwhile, was willing to take a much longer-term view…The strategic value of having a secure domestic supply chain can exceed the direct financial return of the project…That creates what Van Dyke calls a strategic premium…“A value that isn’t tangible in money, but is intangible in the optionality it gives governments.” …This is why projects that previously might have looked merely average from a financial perspective can suddenly become strategically valuable…Van Dyke argues that, across North America and much of the Western world, taking a mineral project from discovery to production has frequently required 20 to 25 years…“That globalization methodology... has failed. We all now realize how incredibly vulnerable it’s made us.”…The new mantra, she says, is diversification, stockpiles, domestic production and stronger allied corridors…The same geopolitical instability that threatens mineral supply chains also threatens the movement of commodities around the world…The Strait of Hormuz is an obvious example…Canada could be a commodities superpower — if it can overcome its own bureaucracy …Perhaps the most important idea emerging from Van Dyke’s analysis is that governments are increasingly willing to pay for something that traditional financial models struggle to quantify…That something is optionality…If governments are willing to provide strategic support, the economics of mining could change…Projects no longer have to be judged solely by their ability to maximize shareholder returns…They may also be evaluated according to what they contribute to national security…Van Dyke’s idea of a strategic premium may ultimately prove to be one of the most important concepts in the new commodity cycle …China demonstrated the geopolitical power of controlling those supply chains…The United States and its allies are now trying to respond by rebuilding domestic capacity, diversifying suppliers and strengthening allied mineral corridors.

Electrification is accelerating at the same time as AI is driving a massive increase in power demand, defence spending is rising and governments are trying to rebuild domestic industrial capacity. The strategic question is no longer simply who has enough energy. It is who controls the materials needed to generate, transmit, store and ultimately use that electricity…And on that score, China starts the race several laps ahead…Processing is where the real bottleneck sits…China has accumulated enormous control across the refining and processing of graphite, gallium, rare earths and other strategically important materials. In parts of the heavy rare earth chain, that share is above 95%...That is what turns industrial dominance into geopolitical leverage…China spent decades building that ecosystem while much of the West was happy to outsource it…That is why the idea that Western governments can quickly reverse the dependency with a few subsidies and newly announced mines misses the central problem. You cannot recreate thirty years of industrial infrastructure simply by drawing circles around mineral deposits on a map…Critical materials increasingly sit at the intersection of nearly every strategic priority governments are trying to pursue at once…Electric vehicles need them. Power grids need them. Semiconductors need them. Defence systems need them. Drones need them. Missiles need them. Wind turbines need them. And the rapidly expanding AI data centre complex depends on an electrical and industrial infrastructure whose upstream material requirements are enormous…So the West is attempting to electrify, reindustrialise, rearm and build the largest new computing infrastructure in history while remaining heavily dependent on its principal geopolitical competitor for some of the materials required to do all four…Barclays expects critical minerals to move increasingly toward the centre of trade negotiations and geopolitical settlements. Export controls, access to capital, foreign investment restrictions and sanctions all begin to merge into the same economic statecraft toolbox…Governments can subsidise projects and guarantee offtake. They can create strategic partnerships and offer tax incentives. But mines operate according to geological and engineering clocks, not political calendars…Permitting remains slow. Processing facilities take years to build. Specialist expertise has to be recreated. Financing can be difficult because investors know Chinese supply or pricing decisions can radically change project economics…A Western project may be strategically necessary while still looking economically unattractive against an incumbent Chinese producer operating at enormous scale and often at lower cost…That is why the public and private sectors are increasingly being forced together…For years, critical minerals investing was often reduced to a simple question: who owns the largest deposit?...That is becoming the wrong question…The premium should increasingly migrate toward time to production, processing capability, financing certainty and dependable delivery…That difference matters because governments and industrial users are no longer necessarily looking for the cheapest possible tonne…They are increasingly willing to pay something for security of supply.

The Trump administration is seeking greater U.S. access to Venezuela's minerals, including gold, as it expands its push to gain control and influence over the South ​American country's vast natural resources beyond oil, according to three sources familiar with the discussions.

The effort could open the Venezuelan mining sector to U.S. investment and give U.S. companies ‌access to not only oil, but supplies of minerals crucial for national security, the sources said on condition of anonymity…The Trump administration is considering a range of steps to increase U.S. involvement in Venezuela's mining sector, including a possible executive order focused on critical minerals, the sources said. ​The order is still being drafted and the administration's strategy to secure minerals in Venezuela could yet change, they added.

U.S. officials have also held meetings with companies to gauge interest in investing in ​or otherwise participating in Venezuela's mining sector, the sources said…The effort fits into Trump's broader strategy of reasserting U.S. influence across Latin America and pushing back against China's expanding economic footprint in the region…While Venezuela has produced gold, iron ore, bauxite and nickel, mining companies and investors are likely to seek updated geological studies before making significant new investments, analysts have said, given the uncertainty surrounding its mineral estimates, weak infrastructure and pervasive illegal ​mining.

During Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip to Barranquilla, Colombia, on September 8, he and Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula signed two arrangements to advance cooperation in the fields of critical minerals and civil nuclear cooperation.  These arrangements are part of our countries’ efforts to reinvigorate the over 200-year U.S.-Colombia partnership and restore it as a linchpin of security and economic cooperation in our hemisphere…The Critical Minerals Framework…Establishes a U.S.-Colombia framework to secure resilient, diversified, and fair supply chains for critical minerals and rare earths, committing both governments to mobilize government and private sector support—via guarantees, loans, equity, offtake arrangements, insurance, or regulatory facilitation—to jointly identify and finance mining and processing projects within six months of signing…Calls for streamlined permitting, market-protective pricing mechanisms such as price floors, national security review tools for critical minerals asset sales, investment in minerals recycling technology, and cooperation on geological mapping.

Please note that travel schedules may change with little or no notice. This schedule is accurate as of September 8, 2026….Premier Simpson and Minister Cleveland will be traveling to Toronto, ON, from September 13-15 to attend the Canada Investment Summit.