JPMorgan Chase this week announced it will invest $1.5 trillion to reduce America’s reliance on China, with CEO Jamie Dimon cautioning that the United States has become “too reliant” on adversarial nations for critical supplies.
Dimon, one of the most influential voices on Wall Street, unveiled the firm’s Security and Resiliency Initiative to combat this issue on Monday. Through the initiative, JPMorgan will invest up to $10 billion in four key areas: supply chain and advanced manufacturing, defense and aerospace, energy independence and resilience, and frontier and strategic technologies.
“The U.S. has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products, and manufacturing — all of which are essential for our national security,” Dimon wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing the initiative.
“America needs more speed and investment,” Dimon wrote. “Our adversaries and potential adversaries aren’t waiting — we no longer have the luxury of time.”
“We need to act now,” Dimon stressed.
Currently, China produces 60% of the world’s rare earth minerals and performs up to 90% of the refining process to make them fit for everyday products. Smartphones, defense systems, batteries, and medical devices all contain critical minerals. Speaking on a press call, Dimon emphasized that this decision is a “JPMorgan initiative,” underscoring that it was developed independently of political or public-sector influence.
While not structured as a public-private partnership, the effort aligns with the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce American reliance on foreign governments for certain essential resources. In an effort to counter China’s dominance in critical minerals, the Trump administration took equity stakes in three mining companies: MP Materials Corp, Lithium Americas Corp, and Trilogy Metals Inc.
Public filings published by the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency show plans to stockpile up to $1 billion of critical minerals, underscoring their strategic importance.
Mining has not always been so politically favorable.
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“Today, my administration stopped a 211-mile road from carving up a pristine area that Alaska Native communities rely on, in addition to steps we’re taking to maintain protections on 28 million acres in Alaska from mining and drilling,” President Joe Biden said in 2024.
President Trump reversed that decision last Monday, citing that the project contains “extensive deposits of copper, silver, gold, lead, cobalt, and other strategic metals.”
Biden’s original pause followed a Bureau of Land Management report warning that the project “would require over 3,000 stream crossings and could impact at risk wildlife populations, including sheefish, the already-declining Western Arctic caribou herd, and other subsistence resources.”
During his first term, Trump faced backlash after finalizing plans for mining and drilling on national lands in Utah.
At the time, Kamala Harris said, “We cannot allow national treasures like these get opened to logging, mining & oil drilling because of Pres. Trump.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) vowed during her 2020 presidential run to reverse Trump’s mining policies on her first day in office.
“Climate change threatens every living thing,” Warren said. “On day one, I’ll do everything a president can do all by herself to fight this crisis: Roll back the changes that Trump is putting in place, stop all new drilling and mining on federal lands, and end offshore drilling.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, “These public lands belong to all Americans. Opening them up to mining and drilling against the will of the people is unacceptable.”
China’s metals and mining sector exceeded $10 billion in 2023, a 131% growth rate when compared with the same period last year. This year, China’s metal and mining sector reached new investment records, surpassing the previous record in 2024 in the first six months.
