WASHINGTON — President Trump announced $3 billion in federal loans and financing for critical-minerals and battery projects on Friday, headlined by a $400 million Defense Department commitment to build the world's first primary mine for scandium in New South Wales, Australia.
The package, unveiled at a State Department roundtable with mining executives, extends the administration's policy of using federal balance-sheet financing to build a Western supply chain for materials that China dominates. Beijing restricted scandium exports for defense uses last year, according to Al Jazeera, prompting the U.S. search for alternative suppliers.
The projects
The financing package includes a $1.4 billion loan to Sila Nanotechnologies for batteries, a $400 million loan for scandium, a $150 million loan to Niron Magnetics for magnets, and $58 million in Export-Import Bank financing for graphite and boron, Semafor reported. Trump also pledged $180 million for mining schools.
Trump, joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, framed the announcement in nationalist terms. "Critical minerals are the raw materials of American strength and power … and we want these essential products to be mined, refined, and made here in the USA with American skill and American hands," Trump said at the State Department event.
The Australian mine
The Pentagon's $400 million conditional loan commitment goes to Sunrise Energy Metals for the Syerston Scandium Project in Fifield, New South Wales. The Defense Department said in a statement that the project would "ensure Western alignment from mine to finished product." Sunrise said the mine would aim to become "a cornerstone of Western scandium supply."
Sunrise struck a deal last year to sell Lockheed Martin 25 percent of the mine's scandium output for its first five years of operation. The Fifield project sits in a state with some of the highest global concentrations of scandium, a rare earth valued for strengthening aluminum while resisting heat and corrosion. It is used in aerospace, defense hardware and data centers, and is typically produced as a byproduct of other mining.
Friday's announcement builds on a critical-minerals agreement Trump signed with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in October, in which each government pledged $1 billion in project investment.
The missing critique
A substantive fiscal-conservative objection to the industrial-policy approach — the case that Washington should not extend $3 billion in taxpayer credit to select mining and battery ventures — did not appear in Friday's reporting from Semafor or Al Jazeera, both of which lean center or left of center. No response from Beijing was included in the day's coverage either.
The scandium loan is a conditional commitment, meaning Sunrise must satisfy Pentagon due-diligence conditions before construction can begin at Fifield.