As Washington renews interest in Greenland, the island’s vast but untapped rare-earth deposits are emerging as a potential lever in the U.S.-China tech rivalry. Lawmakers are weighing a strategic reserve and Pentagon-backed supply-chain initiatives even as experts warn the real bottleneck lies in refining capacity dominated by China. Greenland’s geology offers significant rare earths, gallium, and germanium, but isolation, climate, permitting, and economics—especially low ore grades and volatile prices—pose steep hurdles. With only two active mines and limited infrastructure, investors face long lead times and uncertain returns. The U.S. is pushing public-private partnerships, such as with MP Materials, to onshore magnets and reduce dependence on Beijing, but scaling a competitive end-to-end ecosystem remains a costly, multi-year proposition.
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USGS: Rare Earths Statistics and Information
EU Critical Raw Materials: Policies and Actions
Mining in Greenland
