A deal that would give the U.S. a share of Ukraine’s critical raw minerals could set the Eastern European country on a path to peace — but many of the details are still to come.
The proposed agreement would establish a joint “reconstruction investment fund” controlled by the U.S. and Ukraine into which Ukraine would contribute 50% of the revenue from “all relevant government-owned natural resource assets.” President Donald Trump has touted the deal, which does not currently include security guarantees for Ukraine, as a way to recuperate U.S. investments in aid for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.
Congress had appropriated roughly $174 billion over the last several years intended as aid for Ukraine. Trump initially said he wanted up to $500 billion in potential revenue from the arrangement.
Is the U.S. about to come into a windfall? We spoke to Laura Lewis, a university distinguished professor of chemical and mechanical engineering at Northeastern, who studies critical minerals and their applications.
Her comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Let me start with some considerations and definitions. When one considers what a critical material or a critical mineral is, we’re talking about a substance that is necessary for economic security, for national security, for technology. The substance cannot be easily replaced by other substances, and its disruption in access or supply would create difficulty for the national entity. That is what a critical material is. The critical material space has grown, meaning more and more elements on the periodic table have been added to it in the last five to 10 years.
Another set of definitions that could be useful would be to consider the difference between a reserve and a resource, because they can easily be convoluted. A mineral resource is the amount that some entity indicates might be available within the earth of a national body. But a reserve is an amount that is known and can be accessed — so they’re not the same at all. I think these concepts are becoming conflated in the media.
There is a third aspect here, which is production. That encompasses the mining of the ore, which then has to be processed to release the mineral or metal that is eventually to be used in technology.
The rare earth elements are used absolutely everywhere in technology, but they are needed in their metallic form — and in the earth, they are in very, very complex mineral assemblages. When they are removed from the earth in various mines, you have to first separate out the minerals that have different chemistries. The rare earths are found within particular minerals, that must be separated into rare-earth oxides. And then you have to take these oxides and eventually release the metals. It’s a very complex process.
The most critical resources contain a set called the heavy rare earths, which we do not have in great supply. Those are necessary for high temperature operations in magnets. You want a magnet that can sustain its capabilities in an engine.
We need everything else, frankly — we could use all of them. But I don’t think Ukraine is the richest source, nor the easiest source, to develop, because we have our longstanding trading partners already in place. We have Canada. We have South American trading partners for lithium, for example. There are one hundred times more of some of those important resources in South America, and Australia than in Ukraine.
There are certain technologically important minerals that Ukraine does possess. Those would be minerals that contain titanium; apparently they have some with cobalt andlithium; they’re said to have rare earths. But let’s go examine these materials in turn.
If I start with Lithium, Lithium is not even in the top 20 in terms of Ukraine’s resources or reserves. It’s by far hundreds of times more abundant — and already being developed — in South America. So developing lithium resources in Ukraine is a puzzle.
Then we move on to titanium. The U.S. produces titanium and about 60% of titanium is recycled in the U.S. Indeed, Ukraine has titanium. But I can’t comment on the economic competitiveness of U.S.-sourced titanium (we also import quite a lot from Canada) versus Ukraine-sourced titanium.
Graphite is an important component for battery electrodes, and indeed there is graphite in Ukraine. China does dominate that market. Again, I don’t know the specifics of graphite production in Ukraine.
Cobalt I also found to be intriguing. Again, it’s an important energy-critical mineral, necessary for batteries, for magnets and other applications important to the United States. Most cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and right now they are in a very destructive, very serious internal conflict, and I anticipate those supplies will be compromised. Now there is cobalt in Ukraine; there is cobalt in Russia; and there is cobalt in Australia. The Congo has one hundred times the amount of cobalt that we do, and Russia has three times the amount that we do. I don’t know about Ukraine’s cobalt reserves.
If we think about those minerals — and I’m not yet talking about rare earths — they’re probably already being mined, but that’s an important consideration. You’ve got to dig them up out of the ground before they can be used. However I don’t foresee them making a very large dent in what the U.S. already has access to.
I am relying on information resources from the U.S. Geological Survey, which in my opinion provides the most reputable information concerning resources and reserves, as well as on my background and experience. It’s a significant investment to access ores and have them turned into useful metals, and I am not aware — and I do not know if the media outlets are aware — of the state of the critical mineral production right now in Ukraine, given that the war is now three years old.
But the accessibility and amount of the minerals Ukraine might have do not seem to be of a level that would even be economically competitive with what we already have access to — and what other countries have.
The evidence for Ukraine having rare earths at all is derived from reports that are at least 50 years old that were conducted by Russia. There really is no significant evidence that Ukraine has them. If they do, and they say that they’re going to now develop this resource, it would require creating a mine, and the mine could take 15-20 years to build. But I do not think rare earth resources will be developed from Ukraine in the short- to mid-term timeframe.