GZERO North
Digging deep: US military buys into Canadian mining
President Joe Biden hosts a virtual roundtable on securing critical minerals at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 22, 2022.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The US military is sinking nearly $15 million into the Canadian mining sector through the Defense Production Act in what is believed to be the first time in the DPA’s 74-year history that the US has used such funds outside the country.
Why? Both Canada and the US have gone all-in on critical minerals in recent years amid growing tensions and anxiety over China and its control of strategic supply chains.
The joint investment with the Canadian government, part of the US-Canadian Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals, covers projects for critical minerals essential to key industries including energy, communications, and defense. These include copper, gold, graphite, and cobalt in Quebec and the Northwest Territories.
For its part, China is watching closely – while still investing its own capital into the Canadian mining sector.
Is China’s economic model reaching a breaking point? In GZERO’s 2026 Top Risks livestream, Cliff Kupchan, Chairman of Global Macro at Eurasia Group, highlights mounting pressures on the Chinese economy.
2026 is a tipping point year. The biggest source of global instability won’t be China, Russia, Iran, or the ~60 conflicts burning across the planet – the most since World War II. It will be the United States.
While surgeons remain fully in control, technological advances are expanding the use of surgical robots in operating rooms. As adoption accelerates, so do the expectations for patient outcomes and surgical care. Track medical innovation trends with Bank of America Institute.
Europe enters 2026 under mounting strain as it confronts external threats, internal political pressures, and a weakening relationship with the United States. In GZERO’s 2026 Top Risks livestream, Mujtaba Rahman, Managing Director for Europe at Eurasia Group, describes a continent that is “exhausted, fatigued, weak, and vulnerable.”