White House picks mining expert to head a national security office, sources say
David Copley, who was chosen earlier this year to serve as the top mining official at the US National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), an inter-agency body chaired by the interior secretary, is now a senior director at the NSC, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss non-public personnel moves.
The shift in roles reflects the White House ramping up its efforts to gain ground against China in a critical minerals arms race that touches a broad swath of global industries.
China recently demonstrated its leverage by withholding exports of rare earth magnets, upending global markets and forcing US officials back to the negotiating table, before reversing course.
At the NSC, Copley will focus on strengthening US supply chains and boosting US access to the critical minerals that are often vital components of advanced military technology, two of the sources said.
A White House official said Copley, who did not respond to a request for comment, will be overseeing the NSC's 'international economics' component. Copley's precise title was not immediately clear, nor was it clear if he has formally left the NEDC.
The decision to identify a mining expert for a top NSC position offers a window into how national security priorities have shifted under US President Donald Trump.
The NSC has been sharply downsized in recent months. Offices overseeing Africa and international organisations have been among those shuttered or downgraded, in line with the administration's scepticism of multilateral institutions. A special forces veteran was recently favoured to head the Latin America office, a move that comes as Trump has openly considered unilateral action against Mexican drug cartels.
But Trump's focus on obtaining critical minerals such as cobalt and nickel has never waned and China's near-total control of the critical minerals industry has long rankled the president.
In May, Reuters reported Copley was among a clutch of officials who had been working on plans to pull Greenland deeper into America's sphere of influence, in part to ensure access to the island's vast deposits of rare earths.
One of the sources said Copley's remit is, broadly speaking, 'geostrategic affairs'. Geostrategy is a field of international relations that focuses in part on the interplay of resource wealth and security, a matter of particular relevance for an administration that has made securing access to foreign resources a central element of its foreign policy.
In April, the US and Ukraine signed a deal to give the US preferential access to Ukrainian minerals.
An economist by training, Copley is an intelligence officer with the US navy reserve and he worked on Iraq-related issues for the state department during Trump's first term.
He previously held roles at minerals producer US Silica. Copley consulted for Boston Consulting Group earlier in his career and served as an intelligence officer with the Defence Intelligence Agency, a component of the US department of defence.
Copley until recently had worked in a strategic development role for Denver-based Newmont, the world's largest gold miner by production with a market value of $54bn (R957.57bn).
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