Venezuela has a ton of oil. It also has something else America needs

By John Towfighi, CNN

New York (CNN) — President Donald Trump says US companies will now have access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. But the country’s other commodities have also caught his administration’s attention.

Venezuela has unverified amounts of minerals, metals and potentially rare earth elements, experts say. These raw materials are indispensable for industries from defense to technology, and the administration has repeatedly stressed their importance for US national security.

But while Washington might aspire to secure Venezuela’s critical elements, it’s a tall order, experts say, and wouldn’t do much to bolster America’s supply chain.

The quantity and economic viability of Venezuela’s mineral resources are uncertain. Companies also face major risks mining in Venezuela without sustained security guarantees.

Many of these regions have guerrilla soldiers and armed groups engaging in illegal gold mining, experts say. Energy-intensive rare earths mining can also harm the environment.

“There is an awareness within the administration that even beyond oil, there’s wider natural resource value in the country,” said Reed Blakemore, director of research at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center.

“However, if we’re talking about the conditions under which we are able to exploit those mineral resources and bring them to market, it’s a much more challenging story,” Blakemore said. “And even, frankly, more challenging than the oil story.”

China’s role in the supply chain

Even if US companies were to try to mine Venezuela’s rare earths, getting them out of the ground is just one part of the process. Those materials are usually sent to China for refining.

China accounted for over 90% of global rare earths refining in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. The country maintains a virtual monopoly in processing and refining the materials due to decades of government subsidies, industry expansion and lax environmental regulations.

Rare earths have become a major sticking point in US-China trade tensions. Beijing last year implemented some export controls on rare earths during trade spats, raising concerns about America’s lack of secure supply chains for these critical materials.

“China still holds near-singular capacity to process rare earth metals, and that industrial and geopolitical edge cannot be overcome overnight,” said Joel Dodge, director of industrial policy and economic security at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator.

Critical minerals and rare earth elements

The US Geological Survey designates 60 “critical minerals” vital to economic and national security.

These critical minerals include a mix of commodities, including aluminum, cobalt, copper, lead and nickel. The list also includes 15 rare earth elements, such as cerium, dysprosium, neodymium and samarium. Rare earths refer to a category of 17 specific metallic elements.

These commodities are essential inputs in everyday technologies, such as phones, batteries and TV screens, as well as military and defense equipment, such as lasers, fighter jets and missiles.

“Rare earths” is a misnomer, as the elements are relatively ubiquitous in the Earth’s crust, according to Julie Klinger, geographer and associate professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. But extracting them and refining them is the difficult part.

US lawmakers in recent years have fretted about the country’s reliance on imports for these critical elements. There have been efforts to develop domestic rare earths mining and refining in the United States, but the timeline for projects can take years, if not decades.

Critical minerals in Venezuela

The USGS does not include Venezuela on its list of countries with rare earth elements (countries on the list include China, the United States, Brazil and Greenland, among others).

Two and a half decades of rule by presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela created a gap in information about the extent of the country’s resources, experts say.

Still, experts believe Venezuela has deposits of some minerals, such as coltan — of which the metals tantalum and niobium are derived — and bauxite, which can contain aluminum and gallium. Tantalum, niobium, aluminum and gallium are all deemed critical minerals by the USGS.

In 2009, Chávez touted the country’s natural resources, including “blue gold,” a nickname for coltan. Chávez that year said a large reserve of coltan was discovered in the country, according to Reuters.

In 2016, Maduro established the Orinoco Mining Arc, a swath of Venezuela designated for mineral exploration and production. But the region has been plagued by illicit mining.

“While the country sits on large deposits of mineral resources, it is crippled by a combination of poor geological data, low-skilled labor, organized crime, lack of investments and a volatile policy environment,” Sung Choi, metals and mining analyst at BloombergNEF, said in a note.

“Despite its current geological potential, Venezuela is unlikely to play any meaningful role in the critical minerals sector at least for the next decade,” Choi said.

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