President Donald Trump will soon unveil a $12 billion project to stockpile critical minerals used by the defense and technology sectors as a hedge against Chinese dominance of the strategically important industry in what the White House will call “Project Vault.”
The public-private effort — first reported by Bloomberg — would use $1.67 billion in private seed funds and combine that cash with another $10 billion from the U.S. government’s Export-Import Bank for the purchase and storage of critical minerals and rare earths such as gallium and cobalt, a key ingredient in rechargeable batteries as well as modern jet engines used by military aircraft.
