Also in this edition: What the future could hold for Canada’s auto industry
Locked out of the Vault
Agreements from Washington’s inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial are still being digested, which saw bilateral frameworks with over a dozen trade partners and the unveiling of Project Vault.
Notably, Canada wasn’t among the signatories. So as America rewires the global minerals order, does Canada stand to gain or be left behind?
Why It Matters
Project Vault is America’s attempt to build a Strategic Petroleum Reserve for critical minerals. The problem: the SPR analogy breaks down in a way that matters enormously for Canada.
The original SPR worked because the U.S. had vast domestic refining capacity—stored crude to be converted into refined fuels along the Gulf Coast. Today, North America has almost none of the processing infrastructure needed to convert raw critical minerals into the refined compounds that defense, semiconductors, and EVs ultimately require.
So Project Vault faces a fundamental paradox: stockpile raw ore with no capacity to process it; stockpile refined material almost certainly bought from China—the very dependency the U.S. is trying to hedge.
By the Numbers
US$15 billion—EXIM Bank financing already mobilized across allied minerals projects globally, before Project Vault
US$12 billion—Project Vault financing (US$10 billion from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and US$2 billion in private capital)
60-day supply target buffer for strategic minerals
15 bilateral frameworks signed this week alone—including the EU, Japan, UAE.
China’s refining grip—98% gallium, 91% rare earth magnets, 96% battery-grade graphite, 79% cobalt
Canada’s position—71% of U.S. unwrought aluminum imports; Quebec’s Vaudreuil refinery is one of only two alumina refineries left in North America.
Project Vault covers all 60 critical minerals on the USGS list, many of which are core economic exports for Canada
The Bigger Picture
The U.S. isn’t building a multilateral framework—the word chosen deliberately at the ministerial was plurilateral. A smaller, aligned coalition setting its own rules, coordinating price floors, and directing investment collectively. Through EXIM and Project Vault, this architecture is being built in real-time.
Energy-intensive refining and smelting, the very processes needed to turn minerals reserve into usable industrial inputs, on paper at least, is a good set up for Canada. Our clean and cost competitive power (hydro, nuclear) complements existing mineral deposits, which, with integrated rail networks, allow for better full-cycle economics than stand-alone processing and refining operations.
Bottom Line
Canada’s critical minerals endowment is arguably its most important bilateral tool heading into the CUSMA renegotiation. Its broader integration into U.S. supply chains—across aluminum, copper, nickel, zinc and manganese— limits being phased-out to a large extent. If Canada can secure explicit recognition of Canadian content in U.S. value chains, via CUSMA assisted by Project Vault’s predictive offtake and access to U.S. capital, it is a clear win.
That said, our minerals chip depreciates with each passing day. Every bilateral framework Washington signs with another partner narrows Canada’s relative leverage, especially if CUSMA negotiations extend into 2027. And at a time when investment decisions at times are less about economics and more a price of admission to the U.S. market (read: Korea Zinc JV)
Threading that needle will be the challenge.
– Shaz Merwat