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Trump Thinks the Feds Can Fix America's Critical Mineral Supply Chain

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to unleash American energy by reducing regulations and shrinking the size of government. "Burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations have impeded the development of [energy and natural resources], limited the generation of reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens," the order read.

Trump's campaign to downsize government involvement in energy and natural resources appears to be over. On Thursday, the president signed an executive order to expand the federal government's authority in domestic critical mineral production.

Specifically, the order invokes the Defense Production Act (DPA) to direct the secretary of defense "to create, maintain, protect, expand, or restore domestic industrial base capabilities essential to the national defense" by buying critical minerals, making subsidy payments for domestically produced materials and "purchasing equipment for government and privately owned industrial facilities to expand their productive capacity."

The order confers DPA authority to federal agencies to issue loans and loan guarantees to shore up the supply of critical minerals "or essential materials needed for defense purposes." Agencies are also directed to identify "priority" critical mineral projects and expedite their permitting process.

The DPA was passed during the Korean War to give presidents broad authority to "influence domestic industry in