The public conversation about critical raw materials is dominated by mines. New projects make headlines, permitting disputes attract political attention, and strategic ambitions are routinely expressed in terms of where new extraction will happen. This is understandable. Mining is visible, tangible, and politically consequential in a way that the rest of the value chain rarely is. It is also a distraction from the binding constraint. For most critical raw materials, the most

When representatives of 54 countries gathered in Washington on 4 February 2026 for the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial, the scale of ambition was unmistakable. In the space of a single week, the Trump administration launched Project Vault, a public-private strategic minerals stockpile backed by approximately $12 billion in seed funding; unveiled the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE) as successor to the Biden-era Minerals Security Partnership; and annou