Overview
Driving Critical Minerals Security is a one-day course that will cross-examine the building and management of robust supply chains for natural resources that are essential to national, economic, and energy security. The United States currently faces two challenges: (1) it relies heavily on China for critical minerals, presenting economic and strategic risks; (2) there is a rapidly growing demand outlook for specific minerals because of their use in various national security and clean energy technologies, shortages of which could undermine U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.
This course will introduce you to the economic, geopolitical, technological, environmental, and social considerations of securing critical minerals, helping you understand how these relate to a range of industries and policy challenges. Through dynamic sessions, interactive seminars, and a tabletop exercise, you will investigate the various risks facing U.S. critical minerals security for the foreseeable future with our CSIS experts and scholars. We invite you to join us in person or virtually for this upcoming course.
Curriculum
- Setting the Stage: This session will examine what critical minerals are and, at a macro-level, why they’re important for national, economic, and energy security. The session will also look at how recent U.S. policy efforts have sought to address critical mineral supply chain vulnerabilities through initiatives such as leveraged financing through the Defense Production Act and other authorities, equity stakes, price-support strategies, and how the U.S. is pursuing critical minerals efforts more broadly.
- Minerals for Energy Security: With the creation of the National Energy Dominance Council, the United States has elevated critical minerals to the forefront of its energy strategy. The Trump administration’s push for a renaissance in American energy production—including expanded oil, gas, and next-generation nuclear reactors—underscores how these ambitions depend on secure and diversified mineral supply chains. This session investigates how resource access, market concentration, and export controls influence energy resilience, affordability, and geopolitical leverage in the evolving global energy landscape.
- Minerals for Economic Security: Critical minerals are the foundation of modern economic power—essential for technologies that drive advanced manufacturing and for next-generation technologies. This course examines how access to these minerals shapes national competitiveness and economic resilience, and how their control can be weaponized through export restrictions, tariffs, and other tools of economic coercion. This session will explore how nations use policy instruments—from industrial subsidies to trade barriers—to secure mineral supply chains and protect strategic industries.
- Minerals for National Security: This session will examine how critical minerals both underpin the production of advanced defense technologies—including tanks, missiles, fighter jets, warships, and radar systems—and strengthen the defense industrial base. It will also address current efforts and challenges in stockpiling critical minerals, and explore how foreign adversaries, particularly China, are weaponizing mineral supply chains to gain strategic advantage, taking a deep dive at how the U.S. and its allies are aligning national security objectives to combat supply chain vulnerabilities.
- Look Ahead: This closing session will look ahead to the future of mining, spanning R&D, material substitution, recycling, and recovery from waste streams. A tabletop exercise on critical minerals will guide participants through three minerals currently dominated by China and explore how the global supply chain could be redesigned to strengthen U.S. security.
Additional Activities:
- Off-the-Record Lunch Discussion: This off-the-record lunch conversation will gauge what the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections could mean for critical minerals and energy policy at this juncture.
How to Register
The online application includes a short entry form, statement of interest, brief bio, and resume. Entries will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Please note that spaces are limited and the course may fill before the deadline. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
