Latest / Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Trump’s Most Self-Defeating Move on Rare Minerals
President Trump announced on Monday that the U.S. would create a domestic stockpile of critical minerals for civilian use — essentially a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but for lithium, copper, rare earths, and other rocks central to electronics and decarbonization.
It’s one of many experimental and unusual steps that the administration has taken to boost U.S. mineral production over the past 13 months. But are any of those plans working? What could improve — and what does any of this mean for clean energy?
On this week’s Shift Key, we talk to someone who saw these policies up close. From 2023…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.