In the most anticipated political event of the year, the 2024 US presidential elections will see Kamala Harris and Donald Trump battle for America’s vote on 5 November.
It is an extremely tight race. Polls are predicting a “knife-edge” result, with outcomes in seven swing states set to decide who will become the next US president.
Both candidates have pledged their support for mining and recognise the strategic importance of critical minerals for the energy transition and national security.
Here, Mining Technology looks at how critical minerals policy could be impacted by the election outcome.
US and China ‘decoupling’
Decoupling from China is expected to continue regardless of the election result, according to Christopher Granville, managing director of global political research at TS Lombard.
However, there is stark contrast between the energy policy priorities of incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, alongside differing approaches to trade policy that means decoupling will take “very distinct” forms.
Over recent years, China has gradually tightened its control over mining and processing of rare earth elements and critical minerals. Today, 80% of critical minerals supply chains run through China. The country, a so-called minerals monolith, currently produces 99% of battery-grade graphite, more than 60% of lithium chemical, 40% of refined copper, over 80% of refined magnet rare earths and 70% of refined cobalt.
According to Granville, the Biden administration’s approach to decoupling from China has been “limited to a small yard with a high fence,” with so-called foundational technologies including electric vehicles (EVs) and critical minerals “very well protected” and everything else left to mutually beneficial economic cooperation.
However, “that is really not working out” and “the reality is rampant proliferation of US-China decoupling is going to go on regardless of the result of the US election,” he says.
Proposed tariffs on critical minerals: Harris vs Trump
The trajectory of the trade war will be drastically different depending on whether Trump or Harris wins the election, according to GlobalData.
Decoupling from China could be “significantly worsened” under Trump, who has proposed 10-20% baseline global tariffs, plus 60% or higher tariffs on Chinese imports.
These tariffs, alongside any additional retaliation from China, could produce 'stagflation', that is, causing higher inflation and interest rates, in turn weakening economic growth. As a result, such tariffs will likely receive significant pushback.
Similarly to Biden, Harris’s foreign policy focuses on managing competition with China while decoupling in critical areas, building allied relationships and prioritising nearshoring/friendshoring initiatives with the EU, Japan and South Korea.
A Harris administration is also expected “to maintain or build on” the $18bn dollars in Section 301 tariffs levied on Chinese imports in strategic tech and green sectors, says Grace Fan, global director of policy and disruptive research at TS Lombard.
These tariffs, which came into effect from 27 September, saw the rate on EVs under Section 301 increase from 25% to 100%. Additional rates rose to 25% on lithium-ion EV batteries, steel and aluminium products and certain critical minerals.
Tariffs of 25% on natural graphite and permanent magnets are also scheduled to come in from 2026. However, despite these tariffs and subsidies the US graphite industry is still struggling to compete with low-cost Chinese production.
Differing approaches to shoring up minerals supply
As US-China tech decoupling continues, Fan points out that “Beijing is flexing its muscles on more stringent export controls in this area, starting with gallium, germanium, graphite, antimony, and rare earth [processing] technologies.”
The main different between a Harris and Trump presidency, she adds, is the extent to which Harris might leverage US alliances to help “friendshore” critical minerals.
The Biden-led Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), launched in June 2022, recently welcomed seven new members, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines and Türkiye. It now has 32 critical minerals projects underway.
Ahead of the election, Harris also vowed to create a US critical minerals reserve and incentivise investments that expand domestic and allied production.
The level of trade restrictions against China will depend on how successful efforts to boost domestic manufacturing are during Harris’s first term, GlobalData says in its latest report. If the US struggles to build up its manufacturing capacity, US-China trade restrictions may temporarily ease to help boost the reshoring transition using cheap raw materials from China.
Trump is expected to focus on reshoring. While some of the critical mineral partnerships could also see forward momentum under a Trump administration, the risk of a more chaotic approach means “possibly less progress than under Harris,” Fan says.
Fossil fuels and environmental regulations
Trump’s return to the White House is likely to signify a sharp pivot towards fossil fuels, with growth of the oil and gas sector, more liquified natural gas export permits and relaxation of environmental regulations. He has also suggested attempts to revitalise coal, an industry in rapid decline.
Plus, if Trump wins a second term, the clean energy priorities of fossil fuel and mining companies are likely to be favoured over other segments such as offshore wind, which saw permitting stalled under his first term.
Battery EV supply chains are also likely to be at risk, due to ties with China. This is still unclear, however, as “while Trump 1.0 tried to withdraw EV subsidies, now, the owner of the biggest EV company in the US is openly backing the Republican candidate,” says Paul Hasselbrinck, senior energy analyst at GlobalData.
Trump has also voiced his support for domestic mining. Speaking at a rally in Minnesota the former president pledged to overturn the Biden administration’s 20-year ban on mining in the Iron Range and bring the industry “roaring back”.
Under the Biden administration’s $369bn Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the mining sector has benefitted from the roll-out of loans and grants. This includes the $2.26bn US Department of Energy loan for a lithium carbonate processing facility at Thacker Pass, finalised in October.
Harris is expected to introduce further legislation to support the IRA, including mining reform to promote sustainable domestic critical mineral mining.
However, the Biden-Harris administration has also been accused of lacking urgency to develop minerals and making only ‘modest headway’ on mine permitting reform. In addition to the mining moratorium in Minnesota, the Biden administration banned new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin.
Critical minerals: priorities for the next US president
Regardless of the election result, the next US president “must hit the ground running to break China’s alarming grip on the nation’s mineral supply chains,” says Rich Nolan president and CEO of the National Mining Association.
He is calling for three key actions: more centralised governance, mine permitting reform and creation of a level playing field for domestic producers to address the flood of Chinese and Russian-controlled minerals into global markets.
Momentum is already building for a successor to the US Bureau of Mines, which was shut down almost three decades ago. Such a centralised mining authority charged with developing a comprehensive and coordinated mineral policy could help increase the US’s competitiveness in the mining sector, advocates say.
Paramita Das, chief strategy officer at Stardust Power, a company that is planning to start construction of a lithium refinery in Oklahoma by mid-2025, tells Mining Technology: “It will be the expectation of the new administration…to prioritise policies that enhance national security, US energy independence and the self-sufficiency of critical supply chains.”
According to Das, this should include “increased investment in domestic mining and processing initiatives” while continuing to encourage allied countries to work with the US.
She, too, points to priorities such as “regulatory reforms to streamline and accelerate permitting processes and incentivising enhanced manufacturing in the US and neighbouring countries”.
Regardless of the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election, the US must continue its effort to create independent supply chains for critical minerals.
Decoupling from China is likely to continue regardless of the election outcome, particularly in the critical minerals space because of the national security implications of dependence on adversarial nations such as China and Russia. However, we can expect very different approaches depending on a Harris or Trump election victory.
