It is no secret that the United States is facing a minerals crisis. Demand for minerals is soaring, and our reliance on imports, notably from China, is only worsening. Just last week, China retaliated against new U.S. restrictions on the export of semiconductor manufacturing equipment by cutting off the supply of germanium, gallium and antimony, three minerals essential to semiconductor production and a host of military applications.
Like a minerals OPEC of one, China is now all too happy to exert as much geopolitical leverage as it can through minerals extortion. It’s far past time to address this glaring vulnerability.
America’s minerals challenge is not geology. Many of the minerals essential to this moment are here and in vast quantities. From lithium to copper to uranium — and gallium, germanium and antimony — America’s resource base is extensive. We now must turn those resources into the secure, nimble supply chains that our economic, energy and national security require.
Doing so is going to take smart policy, and it requires people. America’s mining workforce talent pipeline is a fraction of what it needs to be when mineral demand is soaring. Worker shortages — from truck drivers and electricians to data scientists and mining engineers — are already handcuffing some domestic operations.
By 2029, with a tsunami of retirements on the horizon, half of the nation’s mining workforce — more than 200,000 workers — needs to be replaced. That is a humbling challenge, but it’s also an incredible opportunity.
Careers — not just jobs — are there and waiting. As the nation faces a $1.6 trillion student loan crisis — 40 percent larger than a decade ago — it’s past time we encourage the next generation of the workforce to look toward industries that are hiring and that can provide family-supporting jobs, often right out of high school.
That’s the case for the mining industry where the typical American miner earns nearly $95,000 yearly.
Mining jobs are technology-driven, where innovative solutions — like the rapid uptake of robotics and autonomous vehicles — are transforming the production of irreplaceable material inputs, enabling technology revolutions. From smartphones to semiconductors, data centers and electric vehicles, minerals and miners make it happen.
Ramping up the mining workforce — doing everything from changing perceptions in guidance counselor offices to expanding opportunities at trade schools to reinvesting in mining engineering programs — must be a national priority.
This isn’t just about finding the people to power a strategic industry. At stake is the nation’s economic and national security. China has invested in mineral supply chains, and its mining workforce is the keystone of its industrial and geopolitical ambitions.
China has 45 mining engineering programs with 12,000 students, graduating 3,000 mining engineers annually. In the United States, we have 600 mining engineering students, which has fallen 40 percent in the last eight years.
We must boost our mining engineering programs, and we have bipartisan legislation that can help us take a significant step forward. The Mining Schools Act allocates $10 million annually into a grant program for mining schools to recruit students and conduct research. It’s a tiny investment that could pay dividends as we work to reshore our mineral supply chains and begin the urgent work of defanging China’s mineral weapon. It deserves to become law.
We are in a new industrial arms race and a rapidly escalating trade war. While semiconductors, electric vehicles, data centers and AI may first come to mind, it’s the minerals that make all these technologies possible that’s at the heart of the competition. Until Washington makes mineral policy — and the development of our mining workforce — a national priority, we will be playing catch up to Beijing.
