ACMA's Letter on Policy Priorities to President Trump
February 4, 2025
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
The American Critical Minerals Association (ACMA) congratulates you on your inauguration as the 47th President of the United States. We look forward to working with you and your Administration to advance the United States’ economic and national security through the growth of a robust and independent critical minerals supply chain. We appreciate your focus on the importance of critical minerals to our national economy, particularly as highlighted in Section 9 of your Day One Executive Order, “Unleashing American Energy.”
The mission of ACMA and its members is to support the growth of the domestic critical mineral supply chain. ACMA is an industry association that welcomes members from across the critical minerals supply chain, including raw material producers, processors, recyclers, suppliers, manufacturers, and end users, as well as academic institutions and other stakeholders. Our organization serves as a unified voice to advance U.S.-based critical mineral processing and recycling capacity for the benefit of multiple sectors, including but not limited to, the defense, transportation, aerospace, energy, and manufacturing sectors.
And, just last week, the United States Geological Survey released its 2025 Mineral Commodities Summary highlighting our continued import reliance specific to minerals. In fact, the USGS noted that “imports made up more than one-half of the U.S. apparent consumption for 46 nonfuel mineral commodities, and the United States was 100% net import reliant for 15 of those.”[1] Of the 50 critical minerals, the U.S. remained 100% net import reliant for 12 minerals and had a greater than 50% net import reliance for an additional 28 critical minerals. We encourage the Trump Administration to work with Congress to advance policies including, but not limited to:
Streamlined permitting and judicial reforms to advance the domestic mining and production of critical minerals and the siting and construction of processing, recycling extraction, and refining facilities;
Consistent federal funding supporting the development of the U.S. critical minerals sector via the Department of Defense Office of Strategic Capital, Defense Innovation Unit, and Defense Logistics Agency; the Department of Energy’s Battery Materials Processing, Manufacturing and Recycling Program, Qualify Advanced Energy Product Program, and Loan Program Office; as well as EXIM’s Supply Chain Resiliency Initiative; amongst other essential programs.
Reauthorization of robust utilization of the authorities imbued in Title III of the Defense Production Act; and
Predictable tax policy that supports the onshoring and reshoring of the critical minerals supply chain including, but not limited to, preserving and strengthening the Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit (45X) with Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) standards that maintain tax credit investment incentives while preventing our adversaries from taking advantage of the policy;
Strategic reserve efforts and price support mechanisms, such as those set forth in the bipartisan “Critical Materials Future Act”, to counter China’s dominance and distortive market practices;
Trade policies that both insulates the U.S. critical minerals sectors from China’s anticompetitive practices in global minerals markets and boosts demand in domestic manufacturing to give the U.S. a competitive advantage.
We appreciate your leadership on ensuring the United States is the leader on global efforts to establish independence from China in these global markets, which are vital to our national and economy security. ACMA looks forward to working with you to advance common-sense policies that will ensure the nation’s economy and national security are no longer reliant on adverse nations for the supply, processing, and recycling of these strategic materials.
Sincerely,
The American Critical Minerals Association
CC:
The Honorable Susan Wiles, White House Chief of Staff
The Honorable Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior
The Honorable Christopher Wright, Secretary of Energy
The Honorable Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense
The Honorable Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury
