Envisioning the Western Critical Minerals Supply Chain (Graphic Map Preview)

Intergovernmental Cooperation in Action

Hi all,

I thought I‘d share this visualized map of how I’m seeing the western (USA-anchored) supply chain emerging for critical minerals. I’ll update it and clean it up for ease of digesting alongside the full research article I’m working on. It’s just a rough draft I sketched a while ago. However, I figured folks would like to see this sooner rather than later, especially if they are as interested in the subject as I am.

As I’ve said before, we are seeing what looks to me to be an unprecedented level of intergovernmental cooperation. USA, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, C5 (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), UAE, and more, occupying roles ranging the entire chain from feedstock to separation and refining to magnets to OEMs and offtakes ranging from defense to technology/AI to automobile manufacturers and so on. This is not at all exhaustive.