Brazil Can Help Beat China at Its Rare-Earths Game
Brazil has something that Trump wants.
Photographer: Victor Moriyama/Bloomberg
In 1967, a helicopter from United States Steel Corp. carrying a team of geologists made an accidental discovery after landing in a remote corner of the Amazon rainforest: a giant iron-ore deposit that would become Carajás, one of the world’s richest mineral regions.
The setting today may feel less like an Indiana Jones script, but a similar mining partnership between the US and Brazil could once again take shape — this time around the critical minerals that are roiling modern geopolitics.
As the governments of Donald Trump and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seek to mend their noisy differences, the development of strategic metals — particularly rare earths — stands out as an unusual area of shared interest. China’s move to weaponize its dominance of the rare earths supply chain in response to Washington’s tariffs — widening the curbs on its exports of components vital for everything from semiconductors to defense systems — has opened the door to potential producers, including Brazil, Australia and India.