NioCorp CEO Mark Smith advised ‘Mornings with Maria’ the Pentagon’s $10M grant will increase Nebraska’s uncommon earth undertaking because the U.S. races to rebuild provide chains important for safety and the financial system.
The Trump administration on Monday introduced two main steps geared toward boosting home entry to crucial minerals, together with reversing a Biden-era choice, and taking a stake in a Canadian mining firm.
President Donald Trump mentioned he signed an govt order to overturn President Joe Biden’s choice to dam building of a 211-mile entry highway to Alaska’s Ambler mining district. The highway is taken into account key to unlocking U.S. reserves of copper and different important minerals.
“That is one thing that ought to have been lengthy working and making billions of {dollars} for our nation and supplying lots of vitality and minerals and the whole lot else that we’re speaking about,” Trump mentioned in the course of the signing ceremony within the Oval Workplace.
Alongside the chief order, the White Home introduced a $35.6 million funding in Trilogy Metals, a Canada-based firm doubtlessly growing a part of the Ambler district. The deal offers the U.S. a ten% fairness stake, with warrants to buy one other 7.5%.
TRUMP ADMIN PUTS $625M TOWARD KEEPING COAL PLANTS OPEN, LOWER ENERGY COSTS
President Donald Trump listens to Secretary of the Inside Doug Burgum communicate in the course of the signing of an govt order associated to mining operations in Alaska, on the White Home, in Washington, D.C., Oct. 6, 2025. (Kent Nishimura / Reuters Images)
Biden had blocked the highway in 2024 over his Inside Division’s issues that mining might threaten caribou and fish populations that present subsistence to dozens of Native communities.

A geographic map of northern Alaska is proven within the Oval Workplace as President Donald Trump indicators an govt order authorizing the development of an entry highway to the Ambler mining district on Oct. 6, 2025. (Kent Nishimura / Reuters Images)
The transfer is a part of Trump’s broader push to scale back U.S. reliance on China for important supplies throughout industries equivalent to vitality, semiconductors and protection.
WEST VIRGINIA AG LEADS MULTISTATE PROBE INTO BIG TECH ‘GREENWASHING’ CLAIMS

President Donald Trump delivers remarks throughout an occasion on the White Home on Oct. 6, 2025. (Kent Nishimura / Reuters Images)
Final month, the Division of Vitality restructured a cope with Lithium Americas to obtain penny warrants for a 5% stake within the firm and warrants for a 5% financial stake within the Thacker Cross lithium undertaking three way partnership with Common Motors.
In August, the U.S. authorities acquired a 9.9% stake in chipmaker Intel by way of a warrant and customary inventory settlement price about $8.9 billion.
Ticker | Safety | Final | Change | Change % |
---|---|---|---|---|
LAC | LITHIUM ARGENTINA | 8.36 | -0.09 | -1.07% |
INTC | INTEL CORP. | 36.59 | -0.24 | -0.65% |
MP | MP MATERIALS CORP | 73.75 | -0.58 | -0.78% |
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The Pentagon invested $400 million of most well-liked inventory in MP Supplies in July to construct an end-to-end U.S. rare-earth magnet provide chain. The corporate owns the one operational uncommon earth mine within the U.S., positioned at Mountain Cross, California.