China has been waging a quiet war on the United States for years. It is a war not fought with missiles and bullets but waged with minerals and refineries. It’s past time for Washington to acknowledge this reality so America can adopt the war footing necessary for victory.

During his first term, President Donald Trump sounded the alarm that “America cannot be dependent on imports from foreign adversaries for critical minerals.” In Congress, Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Mike Waltz, the president-elect’s nominees to serve as secretary of state and national security advisor, led the charge against Beijing’s critical minerals dominance. They understood that China’s state-directed control of the critical minerals supply chain was not just friendly competition but a strategic attack on America’s industrial base.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is hostile to democracy globally and seeks to displace the United States as the world’s indispensable power. U.S. intelligence reports confirm that Communist China is an existential threat. Yet, Washington has failed to recognize this fact because it clings to an anachronistic definition of war. 

Like Europe, Americans generally understand war as Carl von Clausewitz defined it: “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” Viewed through this eighteenth-century lens, the absence of kinetic action against U.S. forces would indicate China isn’t engaged in war. However, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not subscribe to the West’s definition. Instead, it looks to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which states that “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting” and recommends “first attacking his strategy.”

The CCP seeks to win its war by depriving the United States of the means to wage a kinetic one. China leverages its domestic resources and state-owned enterprise investments for strategic advantage rather than commercial returns. In 1987, then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping presciently declared, “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths.” The state invested and built the world’s dominant industry player.

To reduce its vulnerability to imported oil, the CCP launched a sweeping electrification-focused industrial policy. Beginning with state-sponsored theft of American intellectual property, Beijing directed clean tech manufacturing, increased electric vehicle subsidies, and imposed coercive policies to accelerate electric vehicle (EV) adoption.

China has deployed more than $1 trillion in Belt and Road Initiative investments, including in critical minerals, and oftentimes in violation of basic human rights. According to a U.S. Department of Labor report, Chinese mining has increased child and forced labor, which “risks undermining the promise of a sustainable and equitable green future.” In 2023, Beijing increased mining and metals-focused spending by 158 percent over 2022 levels, locking up key supplies over the long term.

The PRC has also increased economic warfare in the near term. In October 2023, Beijing restricted the export of graphite, which makes up most of an EV battery, and banned the export of rare earth processing technologies. In July 2024, the CCP announced that it would restrict exports of germanium and gallium, which are used in solar energy, advanced optics, and microchips; a few months later, it announced it was prepared to restrict the export of antimony, a mineral used in advanced defense weapons systems. This month, the CCP made good on its threat, an action that could cost the United States $3.4 billion.

The United States has taken some actions over the years. The Trump administration issued America’s first critical minerals list, integrated critical minerals as a component of U.S. foreign policy, and sought to streamline domestic mining permits. The Biden administration mobilized billions of taxpayer dollars to accelerate domestic minerals processing and clean energy manufacturing, and it launched the Minerals Security Partnership. Yet, these policies lacked coordination and the mobilization of capital at a scale necessary to develop a secure critical minerals supply chain.

Rather than meet the China threat head-on, Washington and Europe have argued that they do not want to decouple but selectively de-risk where appropriate. This focus on semantics has constrained America’s thinking and limited its options to counter the CCP. The United States must recognize the challenge ahead, adopt the requisite policies, and harness the private sector for victory.

The new Trump administration should designate a senior official to coordinate a holistic interagency critical minerals strategy. This strategy must reform domestic mine permitting, modernize America’s inadequate minerals stockpile, and impose stiff tariffs on producers that flout environment and human rights. Washington should coordinate efforts with allies yet prioritize those partners ready to mobilize capital and direct U.S. finance institutions to invest in near-term mining projects around the world.

Trump won the White House by talking directly to the American people. He has the platform to do so again and explain the costs, time, and likely shared sacrifice required to win this new war. The United States won World War II, the Space Race, and the Cold War by doing just that. It is time to do so again. 

Frank Fannon served as the inaugural United States Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources in the first Trump administration and is currently the founder of Fannon Global Advisors.

Image: Masmikha / Shutterstock.com