US won the mineral battle against Europe

Norway enter into a mineral partnership with US

Late Saturday evening came the news that Norway and the USA are entering a partnership to secure supply chains and critical minerals. The news was shared on the American Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s X account and reads:

“Partnership with Norway. In my meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, we discussed Norway’s vital role in Arctic security and the strategic importance of Greenland. We look forward to partnering with Norway on supply chain security, including on critical minerals.”

On Saturday morning, Rubio delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference in which the tone was more diplomatic than before regarding relations with Europe, without departing from the U.S. position as expressed in the U.S. National Security Strategy published in November. Shortly after the speech, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told TV2 News that Norway should cooperate with the United States in certain areas, such as supply chains and critical minerals. A few hours later, Marco posted the news on his X account.

This comes ten days after the EU entered into a declaration of cooperation with the United States and Japan on minerals cooperation. The declaration came during a ministerial meeting in Washington on 4 February, known as the Inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial. The meeting was chaired by Rubio and brought together representatives from 54 nations, including the European Commission. Norway attended this meeting as an observer.

The trade war was triggered by China’s mineral monopoly

A large part of Europe has not realized that the trade war was triggered by the American president Donald Trump because China for decades has held a monopoly position in the supply chain of critical minerals. China has both imposed restrictions and sanctions at its own discretion to control this market. Critical minerals are, as the term suggests, critical raw materials for ordinary industry, renewable energy and the defense industry. They are not necessarily critical because there are few of them, but because of the continent where the resources are located or the amount that is extracted. Included within the term critical minerals are also rare earths, which are both rare and important for the production of modern technology and weapons. We will not go into more detail here, but mention that Europe is in a precarious mineral shortage that directly affects defense capability, hence the “battle” for Greenland, read more here.

Norway has mineral resources both on land and on the seabed; in 2024 the largest deposit of rare earths in Europe was found at the Fen field in Telemark. These are not very large in a global context, but significant for Europe because there are few resources on the European continent. Ukraine also has large mineral resources, but a large share of these are in Russian-occupied areas. We all remember the drama when the Ukrainian president Zelenskyj was thrown out of the Oval Office because he would not sign a mineral agreement with the USA without security guarantees. At the end of April Ukraine nevertheless had to give in and an agreement was signed without a security guarantee. This hit the EU hard since the USA now controls 50% of the minerals in Ukraine, which explains why the EU will not give up occupied areas in Ukraine.

The USA had the advantage due to the EU’s mineral shortage

The message from Marco Rubio about a mineral partnership with Norway, reproduced above, indicates that a similar partnership will also be entered into with Greenland.

The USA has had the upper hand over Europe in this matter, but European heads of state and mass media have given a mixed impression that Europe is, or could become, capable of defending itself. In practice this would have been impossible because there are few mineral resources on the continent and because establishing mining is a long and extensive process. There is still no production of rare earths in Europe, only one project is approaching start-up. Europe lacks both resources and expertise; if environmental considerations are also added to the equation this becomes a large and complex picture. Both the current NATO chief Mark Rutte and the former Jens Stoltenberg have stated that it is unrealistic that Europe can become capable of defending itself without the USA, read more here. Furthermore, mineral deliveries from both China, Greenland and other continents would have been cut off by the USA if we were to enter a military conflict with them.

Society and Politics (S&P) was established precisely because of this situation; the first post was published on 5 March last year as a direct result of Zelenskyj being thrown out of the Oval Office and is titled Minerals trump Trump, read it here. Over the past year S&P, which is Norwegian, has published a long series of articles documenting how this has unfolded.