Abu Dhabi’s critical metals deal reshapes Gulf security strategy

Critical minerals have become a national security priority for GCC states as China has weaponised its dominance over supply chains, refining capacity and magnet production.

These materials, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, tin, tungsten, vanadium and germanium, are essential for defence systems such as Lockheed’s F-35 stealth fighters, Raytheon’s hypersonic missiles and General Dynamics’ Virginia-class submarines, as well as civilian applications in advanced semiconductors, electric vehicles, robotics and next-generation digital infrastructure.

The urgency of this challenge is illustrated by the landmark $1.8 billion deal between the US Development Finance Corporation, Abu Dhabi’s ADQ and the Orion Natural Resource private equity fund to take joint equity stakes in critical metal projects outside China’s zone of influence.

The pioneering agreement signals how the Gulf will cooperate with partners in the US, Europe and Asia to secure reliable strategic access to mines, recycling plants and reprocessing facilities worldwide.

China’s draconian restrictions on critical metal exports have made the GCC’s development and national defence programmes vulnerable to shifts in Chinese policy.

In response, the Gulf has committed to a multi-trillion-dollar AI infrastructure rollout, new age electrification and advanced manufacturing technologies to generate sunrise industries that reduce dependence on oil and gas exports.

All six states also maintain air force-centric, high-tech military doctrines that depend on uninterrupted access to these strategic materials.

The Abu Dhabi deal represents a watershed moment in Gulf economic security strategy. The capital emirate possesses the region’s most advanced defence technology infrastructure, making it the natural leader in securing critical metals access.

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds are now well positioned to play a defining role in the strategic metals competition that has become central to great power economic relations in the 21st century. Demand for battery metals and rare earths will soar even as supply expansion remains constrained.

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Lithium fields in the Atacama desert in Chile

The world economy is accelerating toward what the International Energy Agency calls “the electrification of everything”, while the AI revolution that the GCC has embraced compounds future demand for these strategic materials.

Rare-earth magnet projects not under Chinese control remain a lodestar for GCC and European sovereign wealth fund capital.

It is no coincidence that even the UK Treasury has given the thumbs up to the privately owned Corniche Lithium, which mines hard-rock and lithium-brine deposits discovered by British geologists as far back as the mid-Victorian era in 1864.

Critical minerals will reshape the global industrial ecosystem, spanning industries as varied as automotive, computing, mining, chip fabrication, electronics and aviation.

For the GCC, the pandemic served as a real-world stress test when some Gulf states were forced to import ventilators from the Big Three automakers (Ford Motor Company, General Motors and Stellantis), the only manufacturers with the advanced production capabilities required for rapid, high-volume emergency orders.

It is no exaggeration to conclude that the economic destiny of the West depends on its success in winning the strategic metals arms race with Beijing at a time when geopolitical tensions over Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and the South China Sea are at their most volatile.

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This is why the US government has financed some of the world’s leading reprocessing, refining and recycling platforms. America can no longer afford the luxury of ceding ground in a competition it barely recognised for the past two decades, when Washington’s policy agenda was consumed by post-9/11 military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The US has thus accelerated its pivot to the Gulf to galvanise sovereign wealth funds and private capital to meet this multilateral challenge to international security and industrial competitiveness.

National security for the GCC and the West is defined by technology and access to critical metals as the world electrifies and decarbonises in the high noon of the Digital Age.

Economic statecraft has been central to national development and interstate relations ever since the petrodollar bonanza of the early 1970s made realpolitik a recurrent diplomatic theme in the chancelleries of the Western world.

The GCC has made clear that its strategic interests align with those of the West, even as China emerges as the region’s largest buyer of oil and gas.

From geologists to project financiers, government officials to economists, diplomats to media executives, the Gulf’s policy elite increasingly incorporate access to strategic metals into their frameworks for economic competitiveness, technology leadership and security planning.

This makes critical metals the new geopolitical currency of power in the GCC, gradually supplanting oil’s historical role as the singular measure of national strategic depth and international influence in the region.