By Sushil Kutty
Rare minerals included lots of ores, this was something we were taught in school and we learned about stone age, copper age and iron age, the last of which remains to this day the most basic of minerals, out of which was born steel and the term steely strength, like in ‘Superman the man of steel’. There are also alloys and when the pressure cooker lets off steam, it could be from an aluminium vessel.
Now, there is a group of stones (what else?) called ‘rare earth’ hidden in the belly of Earth, buried in the innards of what Edgar Rice Burroughs called Pellucidar, the centre of Earth’.
Rare earth, which has far and wide applications, those which set hierarchies of nations and transitioned countries to economic and military powers, ranking them from unipolar to multi-polar.
Those with rare earths are head and shoulders above. Is it a coincidence that China has the most rare earths and that China is knocking on the No.1 country’s door?
And will China then be in a position to knock the United States of the pedestal? True, the United States is still hard to catch-up with, but isn’t the perception there that rare earths will make all the difference?
And United States President Donald Trump knows this better than earlier presidents who even if they had an inkling of did not dwell deep. Rare earths must not have struck them. President Trump is no orange-head, he has a clear head on his shoulders and he stands upright despite his swollen feet.
The United States always took Pakistan for a strategic and geopolitical asset, a “do more”. crony, but Trump caught on to Pakistan’s true value. Now there are geopolitical analysts who are talking of Washington’s changed relationship with Pakistan and why Pakistan is suddenly on a “solid footing” with the United States, exporting the “first consignment of minerals purportedly containing rare earths to the US”.
The Pakistan government called it a “weekend sale”, a “historic milestone for bilateral cooperation.” The first batch of enriched rare earth elements and critical minerals” to US Strategic Metals (USSM), which has a $500 million partnership.
Pakistani politicians and Pakistani media are on Cloud 9. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and self-designated Field Marshal Asim Munir possibly on Cloud 10. It does not bother them; they have brushed aside China, which has the most rare earths, the veins must run deep under Pakistan, too.
There are people unhappy with the Trump-Munir-Shehbaz deal in Pakistan but they’re behind bars and Trump will not let them take a hand in the high-stakes deal. The backlash is containable. So long as Trump is President; Trump’s older sons get their crypto-dreams fulfilled in Pakistan and China remains tied in the periphery.
The Pakistani rare export deal was struck during President Trump’s meeting with Sharif and Munir at the White House. China has a near monopoly over rare earth elements export, a requirement for industries such as automobiles and rocketry to advanced computing.
“Today, Pakistan steps forward as a credible and trusted partner in building secure and diversified supply chains for the future of our two nations.” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said. The Pakistani lobby in the United States considers it as a success and a failure for the much vaunted India lobby.
President Trump has upended India’s supremacy in South Asia. Pakistan has started calling itself as a “regional superpower” and the United States sees a lot coming out of the US-Pakistan anti-India nexus. Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not anticipate what was coming out of a second Trump.
So much so, Modi seems to have no legs to stand on. A poor cousin to Shehbaz Sharif. “In this first shipment, Pakistan has indigenously sourced and prepared: Antimony, Copper concentrate; and rare earth elements with neodymium and praseodymium,” said a statement.
Neodymium and praseodymium are present in the form of compounds, never as pure, free metals. It takes years to separate, and refine rare earth elements. Even the US does not have full self-sufficiency in the rare earth supply chain.
Things came to a head with the Trump tariffs and China cut of supply of rare earths to the USA, which for USA will take 10-20 years, what’s called “mine-to-magnet” domestic supply chain.
The Pakistan statement talked of the “strategic and economic significance” for Pakistan. Sharif and Munir can siphon off millions of dollars and so can Pakistan earn billions and billions in revenue, large-scale employment generation.
Pakistan’s natural resources are estimated at around $6 Trillion, making it one of world leaders in metals and rare earth minerals. The US-Pakistan rare earth deal is being touted as a strategic safeguard against external monopolies.”We see this as the first step in our exciting journey together with the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) of Pakistan, to provide critical minerals to the United States and bolster economic trade and friendship between our two countries,” an American rare earths expert said.
How these developments will impact India and India happens to be the arch enemy of Pakistan and because Chanakya warned centuries ago A’s enemy is B and if B is also friend of C, A cannot be C’s friend. Kind of convoluted but not easy to decipher. The Chinese have a monopoly in rare earths, the Pakistanis have tonnes of the elements and the United States has a conduit courtesy Pakistan, where does that leave India? (IPA Service)
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