Trump's Next Deal for Rare Minerals Should Be with North Korea

Yahoo

a day ago

The Trump administration's recent completion of a 'minerals for security' deal with Ukraine raises a question: Are there other countries where we could ink a similar agreement?
However improbable it might seem, I believe North Korea, which is likely home to large rare earth mineral deposits, should be next. In addition to supplying the United States with critical minerals, a deal with North Korea could halt the growing threat of Pyongyang's nuclear-tipped missiles, reduce the danger of a regional conflict and put South and North Korea on a path to ending the Cold War on the Korean peninsula.
Tensions have mounted in northeast Asia since President Donald Trump met North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in 2019. Pyongyang's steady buildup of long-range nuclear-armed missiles has ignited a dangerous regional arms race that also threatens the continental United States. In fact, two respected experts believe North Korea is preparing for a fight.
The danger of a second Korean war is real. The two Koreas came close to blows three times, in 2010, 2015 and 2017, a conflict that could also involve the United States and China. The next crisis will be even more dangerous as North Korea's defense alliance with Russia deepens and the Kremlin shares advanced military technology. A retired American general has warned that the countries in the region are one bad decision away from a nuclear war.
Cooperation in developing North Korea's minerals could be the centerpiece of an agreement intended to head that danger off. The United States and North Korea could reach a deal to develop those resources, especially rare earth elements that have important applications in a wide range of modern technologies. The resulting income stream, which would benefit North Korea, could be funneled into a fund used to modernize its economy.
None of this would be possible without taking steps to build a better relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. Those steps would include establishing diplomatic relations and lifting sanctions that prevent economic cooperation.
But no agreement could get off the ground if tensions remain high. An economic deal would have to also address Washington's security concerns, the threat posed to its allies and the danger of a regional conflagration. At this point, denuclearization might be off the table, especially with the size of Kim's arsenal. However, an agreement would have to, at the very least, bring North Korea's WMD programs under control and start a process of confidence building between countries in northeast Asia.
Trump is well-positioned to reignite his first-term bromance with Kim. A minerals-for-security deal could appeal to a transactional president who had made helping Pyongyang develop its economy an important part of his past engagement with Kim. Moreover, the global pursuit of rare earth minerals is a key objective for Trump and his administration.
And to Trump's luck, the next president of South Korea is Lee Jae-myung, who has long been an advocate for warmer ties with North Korea. The timing is impeccable: Former President Suk Yeol, who was permanently removed from office in April after declaring martial law, was a North Korea hawk who likely would have been against an economic deal with Pyongyang.
Lee could be a close partner to Trump in this deal, similarly to how former President Moon Jae-in helped organize the first summit between Kim and Trump. Moreover, South and North have cooperated in the past in developing Pyongyang's mineral resources. However, Lee will have a tough road to hoe, since relations between the two Koreas plummeted under his predecessor.
North Korea also seems open for business. Estimates of the size of its rare earth mineral deposits vary but they appear to be substantial. Moreover, Kim understands that North Korea's rare and other significant mineral deposits play an important part in developing his country's economy; Pyongyang proposed a $2.5 billion deal with the Chinese in 2018 to exchange rare earth minerals for an investment in solar panels.
Still, Kim may be in no mood to reengage Trump, despite their past summits — their two meetings in 2019 ended in failure — and North Korea's foreign policy tilt towards Russia and China, Washington's two main protagonists. However, if the U.S.-China trade war subsides and a positive Putin-Trump relationship grows, Moscow and Beijing could end up tacitly backing a deal. Lowering tensions in the region would also serve their interests.
Kim's nuclear weapons arsenal will present a challenge for renewed talks. Since Washington's past priority, requiring him to give them up, is no longer feasible, the United States should emphasize reducing the danger of a nuclear war. One possible step which Kim had agreed to in the past would be a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests that would both lessen tensions and at least begin a process of denuclearization.
Third, the devil will be in the detail of any new deal. Given Russia's close relationship with North Korea and its recent agreement with Pyongyang to jointly develop its mineral deposits, Moscow may need to be part of an agreement. So may China, which will have to prioritize reducing regional tensions since an agreement could undercut its domination of the global rare earth mineral market. South Korea will probably also want to participate in view of its strong interest in the future of the peninsula. While a multilateral deal may be necessary, it would certainly be more complicated to implement.
Just as with the U.S.-Ukraine agreement, a U.S.-DPRK deal could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take as long as 10 years of surveys and building infrastructure before Pyongyang's deposits can be exploited. Getting off the ground quicker may mean initially monetizing North Korea's more accessible deposits of iron, copper, gold and graphite, which are already being mined.
Finally, while diplomats may negotiate a deal and leaders may clinch an agreement, implementation will prove challenging. The Trump administration will need to carefully prepare to move forward. That will require exercising leadership in building cooperation between all the participants to finance and supervise the agreement's implementation.
Admittedly, a minerals-for-security deal with North Korea would be a bold but difficult undertaking. However, a bold initiative may be the only way out of an increasingly dangerous situation that could well result in a devastating nuclear war.