Embedded in the Earth of the Southern Congo sits an estimated 3.4 million metric tons of cobalt, nearly half of the world’s known supply. This mineral–essential for electric cars, computer chips, and jet engines–has turned the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) into a focal point of foreign direct investment, which now constitutes 49 per cent of its GDP. In 2024, China announced plans to invest over USD$7 billion in Congolese mining infrastructure, and already controls 50 per cent of mines in the region. 

In the Arctic, the rapid melting of ice caps due to climate change is opening untapped areas for mineral exploration, drawing interest from both  U.S. President Donald Trump and international mining firms. Additionally, the U.S. proposal for a ceasefire to the Russia-Ukraine war, demands U.S. control over Ukraine’s vast mineral reserves. As the global race for dominance in AI and computing accelerates in 2025, it seems a global consensus has been reached: whoever controls supply of critical minerals wields immense global power.

The mineral boon is reshaping global power structures, exacerbating tensions, and perpetuating new forms of economic and political domination. At the heart of this global mineral rush are competing national strategies, exploitation, and the reassertion of colonial power hierarchies. The so-called hegemonic mineral ‘consensus’ is far more heterogeneous than it seems.

Contradictory Strategies

Minerals like cobalt and lithium are crucial inputs for AI semiconductors, green technologies, and military applications. Beyond their industrial use, these reserves are strategically valuable as a lever of political-economic influence: controlling supply chains allows a state to shape not only its domestic industry but the direction of global technological development. 

Diverging national approaches illustrate the deep contradictions within the mineral consensus. For example, ‘friendshoring’–the practice of sourcing materials from allied countries–was once central to the U.S.’s strategy for balancing power with China. But since Trump’s return to office and the subsequent unraveling of global alliances, rent-extraction seems to be their dominant paradigm. In exchange for brokering a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, the U.S. demanded 50 per cent of the revenue generated from Ukraine’s natural resources be funneled into a reconstruction fund managed jointly by the U.S. and Ukraine, while American firms  receive priority access to resource extraction. 

Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, an estimated 400 000 Ukrainians and 700 000 Russians–over 1.1 million people total–have died fighting the war. After enduring three years of near-daily bombing, Ukraine has little functioning industrial or energy infrastructure. Trump is leveraging this period of weakness for U.S. economic benefit, openly proposing an asymmetric  deal because he knows Ukraine is in a position where it can be pushed to make concessions. 

China, in contrast, has pursued mineral dominance through state-led investments and mineral deals as part of their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), now accounting for 70 per cent of global rare earth processing While U.S. efforts at rent-extraction are blatantly unequal, China’s similarly exploitative efforts are couched within a discourse of international development. Since China’s BRI launch in 2013, concerns immediately arose that countries which borrowed under the BRI to build trade and transportation infrastructure risked falling into what’s often called “debt traps.” Kyrgyzstan is a clear exemplification of these worries. Its proximity to China made it an ideal site for BRI-funded infrastructure, and after the completion of multiple BRI-funded roads in 2019, trade boomed. But by 2021, Chinese exports to Kyrgyzstan grew twice as fast as its imports, causing Kyrgyzstan’s trade deficit with China to increase by 47 per cent between 2013 and 2021. Similarly, in 2022 Sri Lanka required an international bailout, largely because it could not repay BRI loans for the Hambantota International Port. The country’s  trade deficit with China sits at a staggering 41 per cent. 

While BRI initiatives like Sri Lanka’s port have provided vital infrastructure, they often tether recipient countries to exploitative relationships.

Patterns of Exploitation

Despite their different methods–China’s long-term state-led investments (infrastructure-for-resources) vs. the U.S. focus on deregulated private sector expansion–both approaches pose the same dilemma for developing mineral-rich countries. Caught between opportunity and exploitation:should they embrace foreign capital  or assert  resource sovereignty? 

Some countries, like Bolivia, have responded with resource nationalism. In 2008, President Evo Morales pledged that his government would create and oversee a domestically controlled industry of Lithium. Since then, the government has changed its position multiple times: relaxing restrictions to foreign investment in 2017, and tightening them again just two years later in 2019. Extraction has been disastrous for the local environment, and technological gaps led to delays and inefficiencies in the nationalisation strategy. Although Bolivia retained  success in maintaining resource sovereignty, it failed to generate significant economic benefits, contributing  to widespread anger and Morales ousting in 2019. The Bolivian case underscores that avoiding patterns of exploitation, while still attempting to capitalize on the mineral boon, is not an easy task. 

Looking Forward

The mineral boon is a contemporary battleground of great power rivalry, resource exploitation, and the entrenchment of exploitative power dynamics. The global ‘consensus’ on minerals is fractured: while the U.S. advances a model of rent-extraction, China promotes infrastructure-for-resources deals, both of which create dependencies. The proposed U.S.- Ukraine reconstruction fund, which claims half  of Ukraine’s future resource revenue, mirrors China’s BRI-induced debt spirals , which have left Kyrgyzstan and Sri Lanka with deep trade deficits and economic dependency.Resource rich states face a persistent dilemma: to embrace foreign investment or demand resource sovereignty. Bolivia’s struggle to nationalize its lithium industry shows the difficulties of resisting foreign influence while capitalizing on mineral wealth. As political scientist Thea Riofrancos notes, the rationale for  mineral dominance is murky at best. Yet, at least for a world defined by AI, semiconductors, and green technology, the mineral rush is about  more than resources—it is about controlling the future of the global order, industry, and power.

Edited by Malin Braendeland

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Science or the Political Science Students’ Association.

Featured image by Africraigs. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0