The President of the United States, Donald Trump, said that American companies will now have access to Venezuela’s huge oil reserves.
However, accordinthe administration was also attracted by the country’s other resources. Venezuela, according to experts, has large amounts of minerals, metals and potentially rare earth elements. These raw materials are indispensable for industries from defense to technology, and the US administration has repeatedly emphasized their importance to national security.
However, even though Washington seeks to secure critical elements from Venezuela, experts estimate that this is an extremely difficult task that would not significantly strengthen the American supply chain. The quantity and economic profitability of Venezuela’s mineral resources remain uncertain, while companies face high risks of exploitation without safety guarantees.
Many regions are affected by the presence of guerrilla groups and illegal gold mining, and the exploitation of rare earth elements requires a lot of energy and can cause damage to the environment.
“There is an awareness within the administration that, even beyond oil, the country has great value in natural resources,” said Reed Blakemore, director of research at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center.
“However, if we are talking about the conditions under which we could exploit these resources and place them on the market, it is a much more challenging story, even more challenging than oil,” he added.
Even if American companies tried to exploit rare earth elements in Venezuela, their extraction is only the first step, the materials are usually sent to China for processing. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2024 China performed more than 90 percent of the global processing of rare earth elements, thanks to decades of government subsidies, industrial expansion and weak environmental regulations. Rare earth elements have become a key point in trade tensions between the US and China.
“China still has, almost exclusively, the ability to process rare metals, and this industrial and geopolitical advantage cannot be overcome overnight,” said Joel Dodge, director of economic security at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) designates 60 “critical minerals” needed for economic and national security, including aluminum, cobalt, copper, lead and nickel, as well as 15 rare earth elements such as cerium, dysprosium, neodymium and samarium. These elements are key to everyday technologies, phones, batteries, TV screens, but also military equipment such as lasers, fighter jets and missiles.
Geographer Julie Klinger from the University of Wisconsin-Madison points out that the term “rare earth elements” is wrong, because they are relatively widespread in the earth’s crust, but their extraction and processing is extremely demanding. US lawmakers have expressed concern over the reliance on imports of these elements for years.
Experts believe that Venezuela has deposits of minerals such as coltan, from which tantalum and niobium are obtained, and bauxite, which may contain aluminum and gallium. All these metals are classified as critical minerals.
