President Trump’s Project Vault
On 2nd February 2026 the US President Donald Trump announced that America will establish a US$12bn rare earths stockpile called Project Vault.
Rare earths are a group of 17 heavy metals or critical minerals that are vital for the global economy: they are used, for example, to make magnets essential to many modern technologies, including, as President Trump is well aware, in defence systems. It is estimated in 2024 by the United States Geological Survey that there were 110m tonnes of deposits worldwide, with China as the world’s largest producer at 44m. In a sense, ‘rare earths’ are not rare: several countries have deposits, including America. What is especially rare is the refining capacity to turn the extracted ore into the useful materials. China has a commanding lead in this refining capacity; it has been developing this capacity for several decades. Moreover, China can offer a complete suite of the rare earths, in contrast to other countries which might only have usable deposits of one or two.
Project Vault will initially be funded by a $10bn loan from the US Export-Import Bank, which is the official export credit agency of the United States Government, and nearly $1.67bn in private capital. Shortly it will be further announced that the project will be joined by several other countries.
The setting up of this stockpile is seen by many as a response to counter China’s dominance in rare earths. China’s dominance was tellingly revealed in the tariff wars of 2025, which were launched by President Trump. China met Trump’s tariffs threats tit-for-tat and also had the ace of threatening rare earth restrictions. This appeared to have come somewhat as a surprise to the Trump administration.
President Trump, in announcing the Project, recalled that the Western world was disrupted by the quadrupling of oil prices in the 1970s by OPEC. He does not want to see China have a similar sort of economic leverage.
