President Donald Trump's tariffs on China have raised questions about the issue of rare earth minerals and their processing, but Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Sunday that part of the dilemma lies in the "war on mining" that was waged under the administrations of former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
"If you go back to the Obama/Biden administrations, we are in a war on mining in this country for anything, not just rare earth minerals," Burgum told "Fox News Sunday." "It's not just 'drill, baby, drill,' but it's 'map, baby, map.' We've got these materials in our country, so [it's also] 'mine, baby, mine.'"
He noted that Trump will be announcing a resolution on copper mining soon. "This has been a 30-year saga in terms of getting permitting," said Burgum. "In three months, President Trump has got this rolling again. Copper is key for electronics. It's key for military uses."
Trump also wisely declared an energy emergency on the first day of his presidency, the secretary said.
"This includes critical minerals ... there have been only two mining projects ever that have been put under an authority called FAST-41," said Burgum. "President Trump added 10 more mining projects to that list this week. All of these things will help us in the competition against China."
Meanwhile, coal production is also vital to the plans for energy, said Burgum.
"We have in America the cleanest coal production in the world," he said. "There is a coal plant that has survived the war on coal for the last 20 years."
Coal has many uses, including thermal coal for electricity, metallurgical coal for steelmaking, and other critical minerals.
"When we talk about renewables, we are talking about things that are weather-dependent," said Burgum. "When President Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20, that was the highest peak load for the grid in this area from D.C. to New York. On that day, 70% of the electricity was coming from fossil fuels, and 22% was electric. How much was coming from renewables? Zero from solar."
Solar power, he said, has a "catastrophic failure every day."
China, however, "opened enough coal plants last year to power all of California," said Burgum.
"President Trump is doing the thing where he cares about the economy," he added. "He cares about people. He cares about affordability. The path that we are on was destabilizing our grid, raising prices, and helping our adversaries."
Burgum said he has confidence that Trump can negotiate deals with China.
"We found a lot of cards in our favor," he said. "China imports 11-and-a-half million barrels of oil a day. They import about 25% of the calories they consume every day."
That means the United States is a "superpower" in both food and energy and China is "highly dependent," said Burgum.
"We have allowed ourselves to become dependent on their supply chain for critical minerals," he continued. "That is the one piece we have got to undo."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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