Where Are the World’s Rare Earth Metals?

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said once again he wants to buy Greenland, the autonomous territory of Denmark, citing national security concerns as the chief reason for such expansionist motives. Greenland is located in a strategic position for the U.S., in terms of both missile defence and maritime trade, the latter of which will become increasingly important as Arctic sea ice continues to melt, exacerbated by climate change. 

Observers also highlight, however, that Greenland is known to have an abundance of important rare earth elements. These deposits, such as lithium and zirconium, have become a highly coveted commodity, used in electronics and for the production of batteries vital to the green tech transition. Data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) shows that Greenland has the eighth largest reserves of rare earths in the world, at 1.5 million tonnes. This is similar to the known reserves of the United States (1.8 MT). 

While Greenland has significant reserves, USGS data also shows that no mining activities for rare earths were carried out there in 2023. Although Greenlandic companies had turned to China for investment for mining initially, projects came to a standstill after the 2021 Greenlandic elections. Voters decided that while mining could be a step towards greater economic development and autonomy from Denmark, the costs to the environment and potential disruption to traditional practices would too heavily outweigh any benefits, especially considering that the mine for rare earths would also produce radioactive uranium. This led to a ban on uranium mining and left rare earth extraction projects on hold. In 2021, Greenland also stopped all plans for future oil and gas exploration.

As the USGS data shows, China has by far the largest rare earth reserves at an estimated 44 MT, accounting for nearly 40 percent of known global rare earth reserves.