CERAWEEK: US must 'get back in the mining game' to strengthen supply chain, says Burgum

The US must expand domestic mining in order to reduce its dependence on China for critical minerals, said Doug Burgum, Secretary of the US Department of the Interior.

While it would be hard to decouple the two world's largest economies, the US can take action to de-risk critical minerals supply chains, said Burgum, speaking at the POLITICO Pub during the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston on March 24.

The Trump administration has intensified efforts to strengthen the domestic critical minerals supply chain and reduce reliance on China for critical mineral processing. Burgum pointed to how the US government has taken equity stakes in mining companies and has formed critical minerals agreements with dozens of countries.

However, Burgum said increased mining is another solution.

"We have to get back in the mining game," he said. "I mean, we killed mining in this country."

The US used to be a powerhouse on critical minerals and mining 30 years ago, but "gave that all up," Burgum said.

China previously threatened export controls on critical minerals and rare earth materials used for batteries and semiconductors, but suspended the regulations for one year in October 2025.

Burgum said these export controls could cause "ripples in the economy."

"It's something that is invisible to most of us as consumers, but you'd wake up one day and go, 'oh, wow, every auto plant in the country just shut down,'" he said. "Why'd that happen? Because of some small, little thing that's controlled by China and we can't buy it from anywhere else in the world, and we can't make it ourselves, because we decided to get out of the mining business in America."

The US has the resources needed to create secure critical mineral supply chains, Burgum said.

"We can have the most secure supply chains of anywhere in the world," he said. "We can be not only independent, but dominant."