A Radical's Nut

The recently signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Philippines and the US on critical minerals and rare earth signals a new wave of imperialist plunder of the country’s natural resources at the expense of national industrialization, the environment, and the rights of local communities.

On February 4, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) signed an MOU with the US State Department at the 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial. The US organized the ministerial in Washington, to which the Philippines, along with 53 other countries and the European Commission, joined. The DENR press release claimed that “through this partnership, we are building a Filipino-led industry that processes our own resources, creates high-skilled jobs, and strengthens our position in the global high-tech supply chain.”

Understanding the US agenda

Control over the entire production and supply chain of critical minerals (e.g., nickel, cobalt, chromite, copper), including rare earth elements (e.g., neodymium, dysprosium), has been a key area of competition among imperialist powers such as the US and China. Critical minerals sit at the intersection of economic power and military capability. They are vital inputs not only for climate technologies but also, more strategically, for the production of modern weapons systems, from fighter jets to precision-guided missiles. The rapid rise of modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems, for both industrial and commercial use and increasingly for military purposes, requires massive amounts of critical minerals to build the hardware to run AI, including computer chips, data centers, and energy infrastructure.

At present, China dominates the global supply chain for critical minerals. It accounts for up to 70% of global rare-earth mining and up to 90% of critical minerals refining and processing. Most critical minerals are located in low-income countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The Philippines is the world’s second-largest producer of nickel, accounting for more than 10% of global production, and holds the third-largest nickel reserves (more than 10% of global nickel reserves). Additionally, the country has significant reserves of cobalt, chromite, and copper, with potential for rare earth elements, but remains largely unexplored. 

The US organized the Critical Minerals Ministerial to ensure access to these resources and counter China’s dominance in the sector. In addition to the Philippines, the US has signed similar bilateral agreements with nine other countries. It also signed agreements with 11 countries months before the ministerial, while negotiations with 17 others are underway. During the ministerial, the US also unveiled its plan to establish a preferential trade bloc for critical minerals.

The ministerial and its outputs complement and build on the Pax Silica initiative launched by the US in December 2025, in partnership with its most trusted allies (Australia, Israel, Japan, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, the UAE, and the UK). Pax Silica is the US attempt to organize the world around its control of silicon-based technologies, i.e., semiconductors, AI, and digital infrastructure, to preserve global dominance in the 21st century. Pax Silica will facilitate private-sector investments in the mining, refining, and processing of critical minerals for end-use applications. 

Perpetuating Philippine colonial exploitation

However, the critical minerals pact will merely perpetuate and intensify the exploitation of the country’s mineral resources to meet the US’s industrial, military, and geopolitical needs. US imperialism has become more aggressive in securing control of and access to vital resources around the world as part of its strategic objective to keep its dominant global position vis-à-vis China. The US considers critical minerals a national security issue and treats them as it did oil in the last century. Imperialist competition over oil resources has caused severe oppression of communities and massive environmental degradation, and has triggered wars, conflicts, and occupations. It is likely that the same could happen with critical minerals, and the Philippines, if it pursues this bilateral deal with the US, could find itself at the center of this inter-imperialist contention to the detriment of our people and of our national patrimony and sovereignty.

By aligning our minerals sector with US supply chain needs amid competition with China, the Philippines risks subordinating national resource policy to a foreign industrial and security strategy. It will undermine our policy space for independent industrial planning. It will reduce our resources to geopolitical tools, not to mention as a source of imperialist profits, rather than public goods for national development. It is a perpetuation of US colonial and neocolonial exploitation of our lands, labor, and raw materials for US economic and military priorities instead of serving our aspirations for national industrialization. As long as we are subservient to the US imperialist agenda, we will never be able to build our industrial base, contrary to what the DENR claims.

We must also scrutinize this agreement in the context of the Marcos Jr. regime’s broader mining program, which intends to revitalize the industry by attracting more private capital, including foreign investors. A key feature of this strategy is packaging mining as “green” and aligned with the global energy transition to address the climate crisis. Critical minerals are essential raw materials for building so-called energy transition technologies, including batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure. The Marcos Jr. mining program, which aims to streamline and fast-track new mining applications, fits squarely with the US agenda to secure access to critical minerals.

Even before the new deal with the Trump administration, the US had already been supporting Marcos Jr.’s mining reform program, supposedly to position the Philippines as a major player in the global value chain for critical minerals. In 2023, the Biden administration provided $5 million in technical assistance to support the Marcos Jr. regime’s efforts to streamline permitting processes, advance policy reforms, and facilitate investments in minerals processing and other downstream industries.

The backward Philippine economy heavily relies on foreign capital and lacks any credible state-led and long-term plan to build domestic industries, for example, domestic refining of critical minerals or battery manufacturing to absorb local minerals production. Under the new agreement, Philippine refining capacity will be funded by US capital and supported by US technology. American investors are positioned to own or control the refineries and related infrastructure. The Trump administration is mobilizing an unprecedented $30 billion in investments and loans through its agencies, including the US Export-Import Bank, the US Department of Energy, the US State Department, and the US International Development Corporation, to fund critical minerals projects worldwide and secure supply chains.  

Meanwhile, as the DENR announced, the agreement will facilitate the country’s integration into the global high-tech supply chains, which essentially means that the US-funded and supported production and refining of Philippine critical minerals will serve the US industrial and military needs. By tying domestic critical minerals production to US demand and geopolitical strategy without binding commitments to technology transfer or local control, the agreement risks further locking the Philippines into its role as a mineral supplier for its neocolonial master, where plunder and exploitation of our resources are assured but our industrialization is uncertain.

What is certain is that the agreement will spur mining expansion in the country and aggravate all the social and environmental issues associated with large-scale, foreign-dominated, and export-oriented mining operations. Mining expansion overwhelmingly occurs in ancestral domains, forested uplands, and coastal or agricultural communities, raising serious concerns about people’s rights to land, livelihoods, and resources. Repression and militarization of rural communities resisting mining, which have already been intense, are also likely to increase further, especially since critical minerals are tied to US strategic interests and amid the increasing presence of US troops in the country through war exercises and military bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).

Critical minerals for national industrialization

Critical minerals are indispensable to any serious project of national industrialization. As strategic inputs for manufacturing, energy systems, and advanced technologies, they can serve as a foundation for building domestic industries, creating jobs, and strengthening the country’s productive capacity. When exported as raw materials or processed domestically but tied to dependence on foreign capital, technology, and markets, critical minerals become ineffective for industrializing and modernizing the economy. The question of effective control, strategic purpose, and ultimate benefit must always frame any minerals development program, or any program to manage the country’s natural resources, for that matter.

To truly benefit from our rich mineral resources, the Philippines must assert its political and economic sovereignty over them. This entails that the country insists on its sovereign right to plan and direct mineral development in line with national priorities, rather than subordinating it to foreign industrial, military, or geopolitical agendas and strategies. Without exercising our sovereignty, the country will remain captive in an extractive role that undermines long-term industrialization and self-reliant development. Our critical minerals development plan must therefore not be dictated by any imperialist interests, but especially those of the US, which has a long and bloody history of plundering, exploiting, and oppressing the Philippines to sustain its global empire.

Finally, only by asserting national sovereignty can we make certain that the development of critical minerals does not come at the expense of local communities’ rights and welfare or ecological integrity. Sovereign control is essential to guarantee respect for people’s collective rights to land, livelihoods, and self-determination, especially in ancestral and rural areas targeted for mining. It is also the only basis on which the Filipino people can regulate mining strictly and effectively, hold it accountable, and ensure that its operation does not wantonly destroy the environment for short-term profits.