The US president, who is in Japan on the second leg of a week-long tour of Asia, and Takaichi quickly signed an agreement laying out a framework to secure the mining and processing of rare earths and other minerals. The agreement follows China's recent decision to tighten export controls on the materials, which are crucial for a wide range of products.
Every solar array, battery system, and EV charger installed over the past decade will eventually need to be decommissioned. Yet there's no unifying system to handle that flow of materials-no operating system for the reverse supply chain that the circular economy depends on. While Americans recycle 97% of vehicles, we recycle less than 20% of electronics, leaving valuable critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and gold to languish in warehouses or end up in landfills.
For several years, Pakistan's primary strategic value to the United States was its role as a security partner, first during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and then during the so-called war on terror. list of 4 itemsend of list That relationship slowly collapsed amid accusations from growing sections of the US strategic community and Trump himself that Islamabad was duplicitous and couldn't be trusted, especially after American forces found Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
T wo of the first five major national projects recently advanced by the Mark Carney government for fast tracking involve copper mines. The remaining three involve increased liquefied natural gas production in Kitimat, British Columbia; the construction of a suite of small modular nuclear reactors at the Darlington facility in Ontario; and the expansion of a container port in Montreal. The prioritizing of two copper mines probably took many people by surprise.
In fact, researchers estimated that US mines waste enough lithium every year to power 10 million electric car batteries. Meanwhile, American mines throw away enough manganese, another car battery mineral, to help build 99 million EVs. The study found that if the US started using this hidden goldmine, the country could shift from being an importer of minerals who spends billions on these resources to an exporter that makes billions and potentially creates thousands of new jobs.
