The Artemis II mission captured worldwide attention, but something even more impactful than the space race is occurring on a global scale, and most Americans would find the reason laughable. Simply put, our continued status as a hegemonic power depends on rocks.
Not just any rocks – the 60 rocks the U.S. Geological Survey lists as critical minerals, essential for producing the technologies that touch every aspect of our daily life. Electric transportation, medical devices, autonomous drones, smartphones, and most importantly, artificial intelligence, hinge on America’s ability to mine and process its own critical minerals.
Yet foreign adversaries have repeatedly kneecapped our critical-mineral sector to maintain their dominance over American efforts to explore within our own borders.
China controls roughly 60% of global critical mineral production and approximately 90% of processing capacity. It uses its dominance strategically to flood markets and suppress prices, making competing American mining projects uneconomic, while export controls on processed materials reinforce downstream dependence.
At the same time, U.S. overregulation has created a business environment that makes it significantly harder for domestic producers to compete, even absent foreign market manipulation. Together, these dynamics leave American companies at a structural disadvantage.
China’s state-driven critical-mineral production distorts price signals, floods markets to suppress prices, and uses export controls to inject volatility, undermining forward price modeling for U.S. mining projects. According to Adam Johnson, CEO of Principal Mineral, who has observed firsthand how China disrupts American investment in domestic mineral mining projects: “When capital cannot model forward prices, or even understand what’s driving those prices, projects stall, innovation slows, and supply concentration deepens.”[1]
Some policymakers have proposed price floors for critical minerals to counter this manipulation. But China’s behavior does not produce consistently low prices. When China floods global markets, prices collapse and projects become uneconomic. When it restricts exports, prices spike.
This volatility alone does not justify a fixed-price floor. The problem is not persistently low prices, but interference with real market signals. Artificial pricing distorts capital allocation and undermines the very market signals needed to foster innovation.
Some experts warn that price fixing will undermine our ability to win this race. Vice President JD Vance would counter by arguing proposed price floors for critical minerals are “reference prices,” and the administration acknowledges that America cannot unilaterally fund price floors (hence the coordinated international effort to counter China).
The Trump administration has taken meaningful steps to fast-track critical mineral exploration and intends to supercharge public and private investment in American mining companies. Rapid permitting, along with the use of the Defense Production Act and the International Development Finance Corporation to support domestic mining through loans and subsidies, are laudable steps to strengthen a still-fragile sector.
America should not rely on a central-planning framework to secure critical minerals. Our country’s secret sauce is innovation, exploration, and deregulation. The House Committee on Natural Resources advanced several commendable bills earlier this year that align with the administration’s goal of strengthening domestic critical mineral production through expedited permitting, expanded exploration, and strategic foreign engagement.
Regulatory consistency encourages private investment in sectors like mining that take years to produce profit. Overregulation dissuades investors from venturing into the critical mineral mining space.
Where would America be if we had hesitated to explore space due to regulations capping the rocket emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? Westward expansion depended heavily on railways, which would no doubt be impossible to build today due to overregulation and alarmism about climate change.
America wins by blocking price manipulations, both by Chinese monopolists and overzealous federal regulators, thereby unleashing American natural resources and capital markets to win the minerals race.
Esther Bouquet is a Senior Associate in the Heritage Foundation’s Free Enterprise Initiative.
[1] Legislative Hearing on H.R. 1501, H.R. 2969, H.R. 4781, H.R. 5929, H.R. 7126, and H.R. 7458 Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Energy & Mineral Res. of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 119th Cong. (Feb. 24, 2026) (statement of Adam Johnson, CEO, Principal Mineral).
