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The US government will invest $3 billion in critical minerals and battery projects as part of a push to increase domestic production and boost national security and industrial policy, US President Donald Trump said on Friday.
“We’re reclaiming America’s rightful place as the minerals superpower of the world,” Trump told more than 200 mining executives, educators, investors and fellow politicians at a roundtable at the State Department aimed at supporting the industry, which he said had not received enough attention from Washington in recent years.
He announced a slew of investments during his speech, including a $1.4bn conditional loan from the Defence Department’s Office of Strategic Capital for Sila Nanotechnologies, which makes lithium-ion battery parts.
The OSC also extended a $400 million conditional loan to scandium miner Sunrise Energy Metals and a $150m conditional loan to magnet developer Niron Magnetics.
