Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Harvey Kaye: US Critical Materials Executive Director on the increasing pressure to strike deals for critical minerals

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Harvey Kaye: US Critical Materials Executive Director on the increasing pressure to strike deals for critical minerals · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Everyone knows that China, well, they head America by over
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  Speaker 2: a barrel when it comes to rear earth's withholding them
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  Speaker 2: was one of the Beijing's most effective weapons against Trump's tariffs.
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  Speaker 2: The Americans use them in cars, healthcare, electronics, whole bunch
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  Speaker 2: of stuff the world does. New Zealand is looking at
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  Speaker 2: a framework to sell some of ours to Washington. Harvey
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  Speaker 2: k is executive chairman at US Critical Minerals, which is
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  Speaker 2: a privately owned rare earth company, and he joins me
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  Speaker 2: on the show this morning. Harvey, welcome, Thank.
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  Speaker 1: You, Brian.
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  Speaker 3: It is a pleasure to be here, and actually it's
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  Speaker 3: US Critical Materials.
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  Speaker 1: As opposed to Minerals. Just want to get that straight.
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  Speaker 3: So you have basically made my opening speech, because the
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  Speaker 3: reality of it is is that the geopolitical aspects of
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  Speaker 3: this are about fifteen years in the making. And what
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  Speaker 3: that means is is that fifteen years ago, basically the
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  Speaker 3: Chinese made the statement the Middle East has oil, we
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  Speaker 3: have rare earths, and of course we didn't quite understand
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  Speaker 3: the implications of that many many years ago. It has
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  Speaker 3: now come home to roost, and just as you've said,
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  Speaker 3: it has now become a geopolitical weapon. It has been
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  Speaker 3: in effect in a long term strategy for a long time,
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  Speaker 3: particularly Africa other parts of the world where even if
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  Speaker 3: they have rare earths, the weapon that the Chinese use
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  Speaker 3: is processing, and the processing that they have developed, in
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  Speaker 3: which they controlled ninety eight percent of the world's capability
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  Speaker 3: of processing, is old, environmentally dangerous, and it just is
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  Speaker 3: what it is. And so about three or four years ago,
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  Speaker 3: starting at the end of the Biden administration and then
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  Speaker 3: accelerating with the Trump administration, Okay, the United States realized,
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  Speaker 3: just as you have pointed out, that we are in
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  Speaker 3: effect not only over a barrel, but the Chinese have
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  Speaker 3: their knee on our neck. And that is not acceptable.
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  Speaker 3: The reason is not acceptable is because the future of
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  Speaker 3: innovation in every area of human development, from medicine to
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  Speaker 3: defense to artificial intelligence, is dependent upon having a ready
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  Speaker 3: supply of the rare earths. In particular, this country has decided,
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  Speaker 3: with a number of executive orders and a number of moves,
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  Speaker 3: so to speak, to accomplish a couple of different things,
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  Speaker 3: one of which is to accelerate permitting, the other of
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  Speaker 3: which is to supply a guaranteed floor price on the
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  Speaker 3: commodities that come out of the ground, because many years ago,
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  Speaker 3: what the Chinese did is they flood in the market
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  Speaker 3: and they killed off the new companies that were trying
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  Speaker 3: to develop. And you know, once burned, you know you've
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  Speaker 3: learned the lesson, and the lesson is you need to
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  Speaker 3: support the price floors of.
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  Speaker 1: These critical minerals and rare earths. To that end, I
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  Speaker 1: hope you don't mind me just kind.
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  Speaker 2: Of going on the wad into it, keep going.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, good, thank you.
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  Speaker 3: So to that end, what you saw in the news
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  Speaker 3: the other day was an announcement of something called the Vault.
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  Speaker 3: And what the purpose of the Vault is is to
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  Speaker 3: try to put together a collaboration, a consortium if you will,
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  Speaker 3: of rare earth deposits the guarantee floor for those minerals
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  Speaker 3: and an understanding of process. What we have done is
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  Speaker 3: we've adopted a little bit of a phrase at us
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  Speaker 3: critical Materials, and that phrase is that we have the
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  Speaker 3: keys through the vault, which I.
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  Speaker 1: Like saying because it kind of rhymes.
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  Speaker 3: But the reason I say that is we have the
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  Speaker 3: richest deposit of rare earths ever found in America. As
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  Speaker 3: you pointed out, Sheep Creek, Montana, with three hundred and
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  Speaker 3: thirty six claims covering eleven square miles, represents the richest
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  Speaker 3: deposit of rare earths ever found in America. We average
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  Speaker 3: nine percent total rare earth, and to give you a comparison,
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  Speaker 3: Mountain Pants has four or five US rare earth has
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  Speaker 3: one percent. But most importantly what we have are the
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  Speaker 3: heavy rare earths, and we also have an extremely rich
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  Speaker 3: deposit of gallium. Gallium is a critical mineral and it
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  Speaker 3: is now the number one product on the government's list
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  Speaker 3: of must acquire, primarily because there are thirty eight hundred
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  Speaker 3: military uses of gallium albe.
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  Speaker 2: Just what is the hardest bit? Is it finding them?
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  Speaker 2: Is it getting them out of the ground, or is
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  Speaker 2: it processing and refining them.
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  Speaker 3: It's processing and refining them, and it is getting the
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  Speaker 3: permitting done. Historically, Ryan, it has taken fifteen years to
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  Speaker 3: do an extraction permit, whether it's mining or any other
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  Speaker 3: important material. I did an interview about six months ago
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  Speaker 3: with Bloomberg in China, and the question that they asked
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  Speaker 3: me was, what makes you think that the United States
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  Speaker 3: or the free World, if you will, is going to
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  Speaker 3: be able to get rid of the dependence upon China
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  Speaker 3: in any time that makes any sense, because it takes
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  Speaker 3: fifteen years to do that. And my answer to that
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  Speaker 3: question was the same answer to the question that it
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  Speaker 3: was asked to be when I testified in front of
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  Speaker 3: Congress about six months ago. What can we do to
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  Speaker 3: help you? You can expedite permitting, and you can create
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  Speaker 3: a floor and have an economic floor for these products.
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  Speaker 3: In the event that the Chinese, you know, try to
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  Speaker 3: do what they did fifteen years ago, we bet.
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  Speaker 2: We have very quickly running out of time. But I
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  Speaker 2: want to quickly ask where New Zealand fits into this.
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  Speaker 1: That I appreciate that question very much.
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  Speaker 3: What we have developed is an ability to utilize new
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  Speaker 3: technologies based around artificial intelligence, to be able to assess
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  Speaker 3: ors that come from other places, be able to match
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  Speaker 3: that with the appropriate processes we are involved with five
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  Speaker 3: or six of them, and then to be able to
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  Speaker 3: help those minds negotiate off take agreements one at a time,
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  Speaker 3: replacing the trainees.
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  Speaker 2: Ah, Harvey, I got to Harvey. We have to leave
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  Speaker 2: it there. This is Harvey k us critical Materials in
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  Speaker 2: the United States. As you can hear nosas stuff. Great
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  Speaker 2: to talk to him about this we are currently negotiating
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  Speaker 2: a framework with the Americans about how we might get
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  Speaker 2: some of ours out of the ground, sent there and
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  Speaker 2: processed there for more fam.
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  Speaker 1: Early edition with Ryan Bridge.
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  Speaker 2: Listen live to News Talks it Be from five am weekdays,
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  Speaker 2: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio