The Race for Rare Earths Heats Up in Central Asia

It is not just the Trump administration that is into hard rocks. The European Union is also a big fan of Central Asian metal. In their dealings with Central Asian governments, US and EU officials seem fixated on expanding access to the region’s abundance of “critical minerals.”  Over the past few days, top Trump administration officials have courted Kazakhstan. Energy Secretary Chris Wright raised the topic of rare earths during a March 13 meeting with his Kazakh counterpart, Almassadam Satkaliyev, on the sidelines of an…