Back in 2022, then-U.S. Senate candidate JD Vance drew strong criticism from a variety of Democrats and right-wing Never Trump conservatives after saying, on a episode of Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast, "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another." Critics of the now-vice president attacked his "isolationism" as dangerous and naïve, while Vance's defenders applauded him for staying true to America First ideology.
But President Donald Trump, now 11 and one-half months into his second presidency, is taking an aggressively interventionist approach — from capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to calling for the U.S. to acquire Greenland.
In an article published on January 6, Axios reporters Marc Caputo and Madison Mills draw a link between Trump's Venezuela policy and his desire to make Greenland part of the United States.
"President Trump has offered a variety of reasons for his intense, pugilistic ambitions in Venezuela, Greenland and other hemispheric players," Caputo and Mills explain. "But one tie binds them all: They hold many of the critical minerals essential to AI and defense technology — and therefore future global dominance. Why it matters: Within two days of snatching Venezuela's leader, Trump administration officials and financial analysts began discussing that nation's vast array of mineral riches."
The Axios reporters add, "Along with tapping Venezuela's massive oil reserves, officials say, harvesting the country's rare-earth minerals could help stabilize its finances and help the U.S. blunt China's global stranglehold on those precious resources the chip industry needs."
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to Caputo and Mills, is spelling out Trump's foreign policy motivations.
On Sunday, January 4, Lutnick told reporters, "You have steel, you have minerals, all the critical minerals. They have a great mining history that's gone rusty."
Caputo and Mills note that Venezuela and Greenland both "have some of the key critical minerals needed for advanced electronics and batteries."
"They have deposits of gallium, germanium, indium, tantalum and silicon used in advanced AI chips," the Axios reporters observe. "Greenland has another coveted mineral that Venezuela does not — palladium. Compared to Greenland, Venezuela has more significant quantities of coltan, a metal used in smartphones, laptops and electric vehicles. Venezuela and Greenland also have thorium, a metal that can be converted into fissile uranium-233 and used as a nuclear fuel. And both are rich in clean energy minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel that can help power massive AI data centers."
Read the full Axios article at this link.