How Trump’s Trade War Is Heating Up Fight for Critical Minerals

Oil companies spent more than a century developing a vast industrial network to extract, refine and deliver their product to customers around the world. Sourcing the materials needed to build an alternative, less carbon-intensive economy presents a whole new set of challenges.

China has been tackling this successfully for more than a decade, making it the undisputed leader in the “critical minerals” used in equipment such as electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and wind turbine magnets.