Forges multi-billion mineral pacts to secure energy, tech, and defense.

In a high-stakes bid to fortify critical mineral supply chains and reduce America's longstanding reliance on China, the United States forged landmark partnerships in early 2025 with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – signing high-level accords and multi-billion-dollar deals set to reshape global trade in materials vital to clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and defense.

Home to some of the richest mineral and hydrocarbon reserves on Earth, the nations of the Middle East have played a defining role in shaping the economy of the modern world, with their vast oil wealth underpinning decades of dollar stability, global trade, and industrial growth.

Today, these same nations are emerging as central partners in a new chapter of economic diplomacy, as the U.S. seeks to secure the critical resources needed for national security, economic strength, and energy stability.

Wikimedia Commons

Map highlighting all six Gulf Cooperation Council member countries.

Spanning a region that bridges Asia, Africa, and Europe, the nations of the Middle East possess not only immense natural resource endowments but also strategic geography that has long made them pivotal to global commerce.

Among these, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) stand out as the most influential players, combining resource wealth, capital strength, and industrial ambition to reshape their role in the global economy.

With trade routes through the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Peninsula linking markets from East to West, these nations are now repositioning themselves as indispensable players in the critical minerals supply chains that will define the 21st century, as the global economy shifts toward technologies powered by minerals and metals rather than oil alone.

This outlook was echoed by the Director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Gracelin Baskaran, who wrote in 2024 that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – particularly Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman – "should be a central part of U.S. efforts to create resilient supply chains given their capital, ambitious goals, and entry into resource-rich markets that the United States has made limited progress in."

Building critical foundations

Once viewed primarily through the lens of petroleum exports, Saudi Arabia and the UAE today command trillion-dollar sovereign wealth funds, advanced infrastructure, and ambitious industrial strategies that are driving their transformation into diversified, future-focused economies.

Guided by frameworks such as Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 and the UAE's national industrial strategy, both nations are pursuing partnerships with global technology companies, advanced manufacturers, and critical minerals developers not only to modernize their own economies but to secure enduring relevance in the industries that will shape the 21st century.

These collaborations reflect a deliberate strategy to reduce vulnerability to volatile oil markets, expand technological capabilities, and embed themselves in the supply chains that support clean energy, defense, and high-tech manufacturing.

Described by Saudi Arabia as the world's largest single-jurisdiction mineral exploration initiative, a nationwide program aims to unlock an estimated $2.5 trillion in untapped resources, including rare earths, copper, and lithium.

Reinforcing this strategy, a $100 billion program has been advanced to fund new mines, processing facilities, and supporting infrastructure, with $20 billion in specific projects now in the final engineering phase or under construction.

Announcements in late 2024 detailed pilot projects to extract lithium from brine at Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) oilfields, with production targeted as early as 2027. Positioned as part of the kingdom's broader effort to establish domestic processing capacity, the project advances the goal of reducing reliance on Chinese lithium conversion, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of global refining output.

To aid these developments, collaboration with Fleet Space Technologies and other AI- and satellite-enabled ventures has been introduced to accelerate discovery, attract global investment, and build the technical base needed to process and add value to those resources domestically.

In parallel, equity stakes secured by Saudi sovereign wealth funds and state-backed entities – including a 10% interest in Vale Base Metals Ltd., a global producer of nickel and copper with key assets in Brazil, Canada, and Indonesia – provide a foothold in critical minerals production that spans continents.

"The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources has expressed significant interest in cooperating with the United States on minerals security," wrote Baskaran. "In addition to significant domestic investments, Saudi Arabia is investing $15 billion in copper, lithium, nickel, and iron ore projects globally. This presents a strategic opportunity to reduce reliance on China."

Beyond hydrocarbons, the UAE has advanced through targeted investments designed to integrate its economy into the supply chains of high-value materials.

Headline investments by Emirates Global Aluminium PJSC in U.S. smelting capacity, mining, and processing ventures backed by UAE sovereign entities in Africa signal a strategy focused on acquiring stakes in copper, nickel, and iron ore assets that serve as essential inputs for clean energy infrastructure and advanced manufacturing.

The nation's role in securing alternative supplies of semiconductor materials, such as gallium, reflects an intentional alignment with sectors vulnerable to Chinese export restrictions – a move positioning the UAE as a potential counterweight in future supply chains.

As Baskaran wrote, "Saudi Arabia is making large investments in minerals processing as it advances towards its ambition of becoming among the top seven minerals processing countries in the world. Saudi Arabia's low-cost energy and readily available raw materials necessary for minerals processing such as sulfur also make processing commercially attractive, given the high energy intensity of minerals processing."

Not simply content to supply raw commodities, these movements illustrate a broader ambition: to become indispensable partners in the production, refinement, and trade of the materials that will underpin the global economy's next phase.

For the U.S. and its allies, this emerging reality brings both opportunity and risk, as growing reliance on Gulf nations for critical minerals could one day mirror today's dependencies with China – albeit within a different geopolitical framework.

Tulsa Ports Industrial Park

Spanning 2,200 acres with barge, rail, and highway access, the Tulsa Port of Inola will host the first U.S. primary aluminum plant built in nearly 50 years – a $4 billion EGA project set to double national output and anchor Oklahoma's rise as a critical minerals hub.

Forging a Gulf alliance

Laid during the final years of the Biden administration, a series of negotiations and diplomatic exchanges set the stage for a direct U.S. overture to the Gulf. Driven by escalating concerns over China's tightening control of critical minerals, these early efforts, combined with the expanding industrial strategies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, created the conditions for a high-level intervention.

Those efforts culminated in a 2025 visit by President Donald Trump, which provided the platform to finalize government accords and commercial agreements aimed at strengthening supply chain partnerships and securing long-term access to essential resources.

Framed by growing trade tensions and China's export restrictions on critical minerals, the agreements formalized during the visit addressed a broad set of industrial and technological priorities.

Memorandums signed by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright outlined collaboration in the mining, refining, and processing of materials vital to clean energy, defense, and high-tech manufacturing.

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) highlighted joint commitments covering critical minerals – including rare earths, aluminum, gallium, and uranium – as well as civilian nuclear energy, with provisions addressing reactor safety, uranium mining, and nonproliferation. These frameworks also included expanded cooperation in petroleum refining, electricity generation technologies, energy storage, and the use of artificial intelligence in energy systems.

According to IER, the deals reflect parallel ambitions: the U.S. seeks to secure inputs essential to national security and industrial resilience, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE aim to diversify their economies and position themselves as global hubs for critical materials.

Among the most significant was Emirates Global Aluminium's $4 billion commitment to construct a primary aluminum facility in Oklahoma – the first in the United States in nearly 50 years.

The project, announced as part of a $200 billion package of U.S.-UAE commercial deals, is expected to double domestic aluminum output and create thousands of high-value manufacturing jobs.

Additional agreements featured joint ventures between U.S. and Saudi firms in rare earth exploration and gallium supply, aimed at mitigating the effects of Chinese market concentration, which at the time of the agreements still accounted for 90% of global rare earth magnet production.

Cooperative manufacturing initiatives focused on developing value-added components for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and semiconductor supply chains.

Announced alongside these deals were measures to support research partnerships, workforce training, and technology exchange designed to build long-term capacity in both countries.

The agreements followed months of Chinese export restrictions on materials such as dysprosium and gallium, which disrupted supply chains for critical technologies.

President Trump, during the summit, emphasized the strategic nature of these moves, stating, "They're doing all this work in the U.S. with aluminum. If they do it here [UAE], they have to pay a big tariff to send it in. So, you know what they're doing? They're building a big plant in the U.S. There's no tariff ... We're going to make it in the U.S. now. It's amazing. It's a great thing."

Taken together, the accords and commercial arrangements formalized during the visit represented more than trade deals; they reflected a recalibration of resource security policy and industrial strategy.

For both the United States and its Gulf partners, the agreements marked a deliberate alignment designed to support resilient, diversified supply networks in a shifting global trade landscape – with long-term implications for clean energy deployment, technological competitiveness, and geopolitical stability.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company

Saudi Aramco's Shaybah facility, deep in the Rub' al Khali desert near the UAE border, exemplifies the kind of advanced oilfield infrastructure that could support future lithium recovery from brine – a technology Saudi Arabia is piloting as part of its critical minerals strategy.

Talent for tomorrow

Beyond the material investments, the accords also formalized efforts to develop the human and technical capacity required to sustain critical minerals, manufacturing, and clean energy supply chains.

Recognizing the acute talent challenges facing the mining and advanced materials sectors – including a projected retirement of half the U.S. mining workforce by 2030 – the agreements placed a deliberate emphasis on training, education, and collaborative research as foundations for long-term industrial resilience.

Workforce development provisions included commitments to expand vocational training, technical certification, and skills exchange programs designed to build expertise in modern mining, refining, and manufacturing technologies.

Rather than operating in isolation, these initiatives aligned with domestic efforts – such as the Mining Schools Act of 2023 and new university programs – to attract and prepare students for careers supporting critical minerals production, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing.

Similarly, the accords formalize research and innovation partnerships that establish pathways for collaboration between U.S. national laboratories, universities, and Gulf research institutions on technologies critical to the success of these industrial ties.

While specific projects are still under development, the agreements outline cooperative efforts targeting areas such as battery materials science, nuclear safety systems, digital tools for advanced refining and manufacturing, and environmental innovations aimed at reducing the footprint of resource development.

These efforts align with the transformation already underway at institutions such as South Dakota School of Mines, where new educational programs are being developed to address national needs in exploration, extraction, and processing of critical minerals, while also linking U.S. expertise with Gulf counterparts to accelerate technological advancement in support of clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and resilient supply chains.

By tying resource security to talent development and joint innovation, the accords advance an integrated approach that seeks to build not just supply chains, but the technical and institutional foundations needed to sustain them.

For both the U.S. and its Middle Eastern partners, these capacity-building measures reflected a shared ambition to link human capital, technology, and industrial strength in support of clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and long-term economic competitiveness.