As President Donald Trump looks to boost oil production in Venezuela, another strategic resource could emerge: critical minerals.
Trump administration officials have suggested that, in the wake of the capture of former dictator Nicolas Maduro, the United States may look to Venezuela to advance its ambitions to reduce its reliance on China for critical minerals, which are necessary for technology applications in both the defense and energy sectors. Many analysts have raised concerns over China’s control of the global supply chain, and Beijing has recently leveraged its dominance in the sector to gain an advantage over the U.S. in trade negotiations.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has noted that Venezuela once had a trove of critical mineral supply, including hundreds of millions of tonnes of nickel and bauxite, and thousands of tonnes of gold.
“You have steel, you have minerals, right? All the critical minerals. They have a great mining history that’s gone rusty,” Lutnick said on Sunday. “So steel, aluminum, minerals — I mean, this was once, upon a time, one of the great economies and cultures of the world, and it was destroyed. Now, President Trump is going to fix it and bring it back.”
Lutnick also noted that a significant portion of the country’s mineral supply is located in the Orinoco Mining Arc. In 2016, the Maduro regime designated 12% of the country’s territory as the Arco Minero, or Orinoco Mining Arc.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the arc contains minerals such as bauxite, used for aluminum production; coltan, used in the production of electronic devices; industrial diamonds; and gold. Yet, the area has been home to illegal mining, where non-state actors and local gangs have competed for mining operations.
It could be tempting for the U.S. to try to gain access to production from the area. But Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at CSIS, wrote that investment in Venezuela’s mining sector could not follow “anything resembling a conventional mining timeline.”
Baskaran said there are “political risks, sanctions exposure, insecurity in mining regions, weak rule of law, and the absence of enforceable contracts” that could place binding constraints on Western capital in the region.
She added that Venezuela’s mining sector could see Western investment if there are political, legal, and security reforms.
“Absent those changes, Western capital will continue to stay out, and the sector will remain dominated by state-linked, opaque, and informal systems rather than the kind of investment that supports a modern, transparent mining industry,” Baskaran wrote.
Still, over the past year, the Trump administration has been seeking to boost the U.S.’s supply of critical minerals through executive orders, trade agreements, legislation, and even taking direct ownership in critical minerals companies.
For example, the Trump administration has taken a 5% stake in Lithium Americas, a Canadian company developing a lithium mine and processing plant in Nevada. It has also taken a 15% direct stake in MP Materials to build a rare-earth magnet supply chain by constructing the company’s second U.S. magnet facility.
The administration has also pushed for a broad federal approach to boosting critical minerals, including by streamlining the permitting process for mining projects through the Permitting Council, a federal agency that guides essential infrastructure projects through the permitting process.
In late October, Trump also struck deals with several Asian countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia, to help diversify the U.S. critical mineral supply.
The question remains whether Venezuela’s mineral reserves will be beneficial to the U.S., given the lack of data to assess its mineral supply.
Abigail Hunter, executive director of SAFE’s Center for Critical Minerals Strategy, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that less is known about mineral assets in Venezuela.
“It will take long-term stability and a new political direction for companies to be willing to support necessary investments and ensure these resources are developed in a way that supports transparent, diversified, and globally integrated supply chains,” Hunter said.
“Ideally, new leadership helps accomplish these goals, rather than having Venezuela’s resources consolidated through Russian and Chinese actors, as would likely be the case if they were developed under Marudo’s leadership,” she said.
Meanwhile, following the military operation in Venezuela, Trump has alluded to the idea of the U.S. taking over Greenland, which also has minerals he is seeking.
“Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” Trump said on board Air Force One on Sunday.
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Greenland is known for its number of critical mineral deposits and rare earth elements.
A 2023 survey found that Greenland contains about 25 of the 34 minerals categorized as critical raw materials by the European Commission. Those minerals include rare-earth elements such as graphite, copper, nickel, zinc, gold, diamonds, iron ore, and tungsten.
