On March 20, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production – The White House (EO or Order) in the interest of national and economic security.
Our national and economic security are now acutely threatened by our reliance upon hostile foreign powers' mineral production. It is imperative for our national security that the United States take immediate action to facilitate domestic mineral production to the maximum possible extent.
Significantly, the EO aims to boost U.S. minerals security by expediting permitting for key mining projects on federal lands through the Defense Production Act (DPA) and utilizing financing programs like the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to fund domestic mining projects.
The Administration will utilize Department of Defense investment authority, including the DPA and the Department of Defense Office of Strategic Capital, to establish a dedicated mineral exploration and mineral production fund for domestic investments to be executed by the DFC by investing in infrastructure and critical minerals projects to strengthen supply chains and reduce reliance on imports.
The EO leverages existing funds only to facilitate domestic mineral production development. In order to appropriate and deploy additional capital to support mineral production development programs, Congress would need to pass new legislation - similar to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Furthermore, the EO states that within 45-day of the Order, the Administrator of the Small Business Administration will present "recommendations for legislation to enhance private-public capital activities to support financings to domestic small business engaged in mineral production."
More immediately, the EO calls for a list of "priority projects" to be delivered to the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) within 10 days of the Order by the heads of each executive agency involved in mineral production permitting for the purpose of expediting permitting and reducing "bottlenecks."
As such, mining industry participants who have submitted a plan of operations, a permit application, or other application for approval to such executive agencies should evaluate whether such projects could be determined "priority projects" under the EO and consider public policy avenues to escalate their projects for inclusion in the list by the NEDC and subsequent review by the Permitting Council.
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