Critical Minerals Face Election-Year Reckoning as US Races to Outpace China

At Fastmarkets’ 2026 Battery Raw Materials Conference, a panel of industry veterans laid out just how much is riding on the next four months for the United States’ critical minerals buildout, from a looming midterm election to a September visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping that could reshape Washington’s leverage over the sector.

Moderator Howard Klein of RK Equity opened the discussion by framing the political backdrop, noting that prediction markets at the time of the conference (late June) put the odds of a Democratic House takeover at 83 percent, with the Senate a closer call.

“If the Democrats win the House, there’s going to be a lot of hearings and oversight into many of the critical minerals deals that the Trump administration has done,” Klein told the panel, before asking each speaker what they were watching most closely heading into the vote.

For Ken Hoffman, founder and CEO of Traubenbach Associates, the common ground between the parties is bigger than the rhetoric suggests.

“Both sides understand that in the face of AI, particularly what’s causing a huge issue in terms of electricity — how does the US prepare for that?” he said.

Hoffman explained the real fight isn’t over goals but mechanics: permitting timelines, price floors, and whether Washington can offer companies “some sort of stability and consistency in policy” instead of a strategy that resets with every administration.

Gary Stanley, managing director of Global Mineral Strategies and a 41 year veteran of the US Department of Commerce, where he last led the Office of Critical Minerals and Metals, pointed to Xi’s September visit as the pivotal near-term event.

“There is an incredible interdependency between China and the United States, and in many ways Xi has used what he believes in the area of commerce and trade as its strongest play, and that’s the critical minerals area,” Stanley said, adding the irony that China’s own economic dependence on those same sectors creates risk on both sides of the table.

“That conversation coming up in September is going to set the stage,” he said, for how the relationship — and the minerals leverage embedded in it — evolves into next year.

Jesse Edmondson, the CEO of US Critical Minerals, agreed the China meeting will draw intense scrutiny, but pushed back gently on the idea that rare earths fatigue inside the administration automatically translates into bipartisan momentum for battery materials.

He pointed to roughly US$20 billion in battery and energy-storage projects — many sited in red states like Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas — that stalled over the past year amid policy uncertainty.

“With a little certainty, with a little cooperation from the bipartisan side,” he said, that money could start moving again.

Klein pressed the panel on whether that optimism was realistic, noting that rare earths dealmaking has hardly slowed, citing a recent US$1.9 billion acquisition by Energy Fuels (TSX:EFR,NYSEAMERICAN:UUUU)….