Posted on 06/21/2018 1:45:07 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s not far-fetched to consider ‘The Art of the Deal’ applied to North Korea’s allegedly vast rare earth resources.
This may not be about condos on North Korean beaches after all. Arguably, the heart of the matter in the Trump administration’s embrace of Kim Jong-un has everything to do with one of the largest deposits of rare earth elements (REEs) in the world, located only 150 km northwest of Pyongyang and potentially worth billions of US dollars.
All the implements of 21st century technology-driven everyday life rely on the chemical and physical properties of 17 precious elements on the periodic chart also known as REEs.
Currently, China is believed to control over 95% of global production of rare earth metals, with an estimated 55 million tons in deposits. North Korea for its part holds at least 20 million tons.
Rare earth elements are not the only highly strategic minerals and metals in this power play. The same deposits are sources of tungsten, zirconium, titanium, hafnium, rhenium and molybdenum; all of these are absolutely critical not only for myriad military applications but also for nuclear power.
Rare earth metallurgy also happens to be essential for US, Russian and Chinese weapons systems. The THAAD system needs rare earth elements, and so do Russia’s S-400 and S-500 missile defense systems.
It’s not far-fetched to consider ‘The Art of the Deal’ applied to rare earth elements. If the US does not attempt to make a serious play on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK’s) allegedly vast rare earth resources, the winner, once again, maybe Beijing. And Moscow as well – considering the Russia-China strategic partnership, now explicitly recognized on the record.
The whole puzzle may revolve around who offers the best return on investment; not on real estate but sexy metal, with the Pyongyang leadership potentially able to collect an immense fortune.
Is Beijing capable of matching a possible American deal? This may well have been a key topic of discussion during the third meeting in only a few weeks between Kim Jong-un and President Xi Jinping, exactly when the entire geopolitical chessboard hangs in the balance.
So metals are not sexy?
Researcher Marc Sills, in a paper titled ‘Strategic Materials Crises and Great Power Conflicts’, says: “Conflict over strategic minerals is inevitable. The dramas will likely unfold at or near the mines, or along the transportation lines the materials must travel, and especially at world’s strategic chokepoints the US military is now generally tasked to control. Again, the power equation is written to include both control of possession and denial of possession by others.”
This applies, for instance, to the Ukraine puzzle. Russia badly needs Ukraine’s titanium, zirconium and hafnium for its industrial-military complex.
Earlier this year Japanese researchers discovered a deposit of 16 million tons of rare earth elements (less than the North Korean reserves) beneath the seabed in the Western Pacific. But that’s unlikely to change China’s – and potentially the DPRK’s – prominence. The key in the whole rare earth element process is to devise a profitable production chain, as the Chinese have done. And that takes a long time.
Detailed papers such as ‘China’s Rare Earth Elements Industry’, by Cindy Hurst (2010), published by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) or ‘Rare Earth in Selected US Defense Applications’, by James Hedrick, presented at the 40th Forum on the Geology of Industrial Minerals in 2004, convincingly map all the connections. Sills stresses how minerals and metals, though, seem to attract attention only in mining trade publications: “And that would seem to explain in part why the REE contest in Korea has eluded attention. Metals just ain’t that sexy. But weapons are.”
Metals are certainly sexy for US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It’s quite enlightening to remember how Pompeo, then CIA director, told a Senate Committee in May 2017 how foreign control of rare earth elements was “a very real concern.”
Fast forward to one year later, when Pompeo, taking over at the State Department, emphasized a new “swagger” in US foreign policy.
And fast forward again to only a few weeks ago, with Pompeo’s swagger applied to meetings with Kim Jong-un.
Way apart from a Netflix-style plot twist, a quite possible narrative is Pompeo impressing on Kim the beauty of a sweet, US-brokered rare earth elements deal. But China and Russia must be locked out. Or else. It’s not hard to visualize Xi understanding the implications.
The DPRK – this unique mix of Turkmenistan and post-USSR Romania – may be on the cusp of being integrated to a vast supply chain via an Iron Silk Road, with the Russia-China strategic partnership simultaneously investing in railways, pipelines and ports in parallel to North-South Korean special economic zones (SEZs), Chinese-style, coming to fruition.
As Gazprom’s Deputy CEO Vitaly Markelov has revealed: “The South Korean side has asked Gazprom” to re-start a key project – a gas pipeline across North Korea, an umbilical cord between South Korea and the Eurasian landmass.
Since key discussions at the Far East Summit in Vladivostok in September 2017, the roadmap is set for South Korea, China and Russia to attach the DPRK to Eurasia integration, developing its agriculture, hydropower and – crucially – mineral wealth.
As much as the Trump administration may be late in the game, it’s unthinkable Washington would abandon a piece of the (metal) action.
Haven’t we heard the same thing about US imperialistic designs on the untold and untapped mineral deposits of Afghanistan?
Now why would you think President Trump could articulate such a deal? ;O)
Its silly that REE’s were the motivation behind getting nuke ICBM’s out of the hands an unstable dictator. But the left is always looking for an evil conspiracy...
Pick a country or region and I can probably find you a conspiracy theory about Uncle Sam taking advantage of them or planning on it.
Of course it couldn’t be about eliminating the nuclear weapons and missile systems of a nation that was our enemy, now could it!
Sheesh!
They want to eliminate any positive press for Trump, ridding North Korea of nukes pointed at us.
It can’t be about that!
Maybe you can, but there’s no need to look, since no leftist ever checks. It’s a fill in the blanks charge.
“The US involvement in {country name here} is motivated by {pick from: greed, hatred, big business influence, racism}”
Put that in the headline, and make up elaborating details as needed.
I bet it would be an easy computer program to write a suitable article outline given several lists of charges, historical events, and fake reasons.
Rare earth metals are not that rare. And NK is not the only place they can be found. The US is happy to have a source of funds that NK can mine themselves and sell as long as they stand down their army. The US will buy whatever they don’t have naturally. Its like Saudi oil. The US has never needed it. North America has always produced enough oil for us. We just don’t want others to corner the market. If anything its Europe that is without many natural resources.
Norkea is more accessible than Afghanistan and if Trump has made a deal we don’t have to fight for the stuff. If there is a deal it would be primarily with China and would involve some tradeoffs with the tariffs. The best approach with China is the lower taxes and less regulation in America to keep more businesses from going there and from giving up all our tech advances. Getting some of those companies back that are already there doesn’t matter in re secrets because those secrets are already gone. A deal whereby China doesn’t get our secrets from companies that relocate there is fatuous because there is no such possibility.The Norkea deal will work out on many different levels and will involve the South China Sea, too, I believe. Vietnam is getting in a pickle down there. The Phillipines would be next, then Okinawa.
I would certainly hope that is the case, so long as it is Trump making the deals. He won’t steal stuff and won’t give away what we have to keep, unlike some previous presidents.
The Praseodymium awaits!
Those are happy thoughts, but do you really think China is going to let itself be surrounded by an alliance of prosperity rather than vassal or stressed and worried states without some pushback?
The left makes yet another case for leaving North Korea just as it is.
In “The Art of the Deal” Trump strongly implied how he did not like to pursue oil, things he could not ‘see’.
Could the REE be the silver lining behind the golden cloud of Korean nuclear disarmament?
There are a lot of silver linings, but none of them would have been a silver lining without a deal.
Will there be investment opportunities? While there be rare earth elements? Will there be condos on the beaches? Will there be a myriad of other things? sure.
In other words, this is a win win win win win win, for us. And North Korea will win too.
The lives of the North Koreans will improve. Gone will be hunger and starvation. Kim will moderate his actions to an extent.
If we get the nukes and the missiles off the table, we’ve already won. And there’s so much more to it.
Can anyone think of a better outcome?
Yes, sure, if Kim were out of office...
If Kim moderates, he may turn out like Khadaffy, a neutered old man, a far cry from what he has been towards his people.
The Left loses all the way around.
Love it.
But is there UNOBTAINIUM???
After that we will ship rivers of LNG and crude. NOKO will be dining at the table of plenty IOW we shall be paying for SOKO’s and Japan’s security.
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