In late May 2024, the US military transferred $15 million to two Canadian mining companies: Fortune Minerals, which operates a cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper mine in the Northwest Territories and a refinery in Alberta, and Lomiko Metals, a Quebec-based graphite and lithium miner. The funding was allocated through the Cold War-era Defense Production Act. After the news broke, the CBC plainly stated the reason behind the US military’s hunger for Canadian minerals, in a section heading: “What’s driving it: US fear of China.”
US companies have been unable to compete with China on high-tech production. Earlier this month, the sluggishness of US production led President Joe Biden to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, the best-selling EVs on the global market. Canada, following Washington’s lead, is now considering EV tariffs.
In a tacit admission of the failure of Washington’s market-driven economic policy, Biden claimed that Beijing’s substantial subsidies for its EV industry, a state-led approach to EV development, is “unfair.”
That the Pentagon is directly funding Canadian mines shows Washington views its economic inferiority as a national security issue. And more Pentagon money may be incoming, as the US has allocated over $500 million in cross-border mineral funding. In fact, mining companies in the Ring of Fire stated that the US has expressed interest in funding their projects, despite committed resistance to mining from many Indigenous nations in the region. Companies in the Ring of Fire that have been contacted by the US Department of Defence include Wyloo Metals, Electra Battery Materials Corp., and Avalon Advanced Materials. So, the Pentagon may target the Ring of Fire in its next round of funding. (more...)
Pentagon funding draws Canadian mining industry closer to US war machine
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