Critical minerals have evolved from industrial raw materials into a complex strategic issue encompassing national security, supply chain restructuring, and great power competition. Since Trump's second term, U.S. policy has accelerated markedly, employing executive orders to expedite approvals, initiating Section 232 investigations to securitize import dependence, and advancing multilateral trade agreements to extend the agenda from resource security to rule-shaping. Latin America, endowed with abundant resources and proximity to North American markets, is transforming from a raw material supplier into a crucial arena for supply chain restructuring and rule competition, being incorporated into the U.S. Western Hemisphere strategic framework. Existing research has focused primarily on policy analysis, regional arrangements elsewhere, and the U.S.-China competition perspective, yet insufficient attention has been paid to institutional innovations during Trump's second term, systematic studies of the Latin American theater, and the counter-shaping effects of Latin American countries' differentiated responses. Based on this, this paper examines the strategic motivations behind the U.S. prioritization of Latin America, the instruments of transformation, and how Latin American responses shape the practical boundaries of this strategy.

I. Primary Motivations for U.S. Strengthening of Critical Mineral Engagement in Latin America

This section analyzes threefold motivations for U.S. strengthening of critical mineral engagement in Latin America during Trump's second term. First, the pressure for securitization of critical minerals continues to rise. U.S. policy has extended from upstream extraction to the entire industrial chain encompassing processing, smelting, and manufacturing, with the goal shifting toward building complete and controllable strategic industrial chains. Critical minerals are deeply embedded in high-value-added industries, supporting downstream industrial value-added of $4.09 trillion in 2025; simultaneously, their defense applications are prominent, with rare earth materials being irreplaceable in weapons systems. U.S. supply chain resilience remains inadequate, with over half of non-fuel mineral products dependent on imports and evident weaknesses in mid- and downstream segments, while the dual-use nature of these materials further amplifies security risks. Second, Latin America possesses triple strategic value: concentrated resource distribution, with Brazilian niobium, "Lithium Triangle" lithium, and Andean copper corresponding to different strategic needs; significant corridor value, with geographical proximity to North American markets and critical terrain such as the Panama Canal receiving U.S. attention; and relatively strong institutional accessibility, with the U.S.-Latin America free trade agreement network providing connection interfaces and the political ecology of some countries converging toward Trump administration preferences, reducing cooperation barriers. Third, Latin America has become an intersection point of U.S.-China competition. The United States is committed to reshaping a supply system centered on itself, weakening China's dominant position in processing and refining, defining "non-market practices" as security threats, and seeking to establish "preferential trade zones free from non-market distortions." Competition with China through security reviews and supply chain restructuring has spilled over into Latin America, making investment in the region deeply shaped by both geopolitical competition and host country policies.

II. Policy Instruments and Implementation Pathways for U.S. Advancement of Critical Mineral Development in Latin America

This section systematically reviews the four-layer action pathway for U.S. advancement of critical mineral development in Latin America during Trump's second term. At the strategic framework level, the United States has incorporated energy and critical minerals into a unified national security vision through presidential executive orders, established the National Energy Dominance Council to achieve inter-departmental coordination, and initiated national security investigations and financing coordination mechanisms, ultimately extending domestic arrangements to external cooperation through trade policy agendas, forming a complete policy chain from executive orders to international platforms, with its focus more prominently emphasizing the nexus between energy production and strategic competition compared to the Biden period. At the cooperation mechanism level, the United States has launched the agenda through multilateral occasions such as the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial Meeting, proposed the concept of trade blocs involving "like-minded countries," and simultaneously concretized cooperation through bilateral memoranda of understanding, high-level dialogues, and action plans, with Argentina and Peru emphasizing the connection between supply chains and resource governance, Chile extending to mechanism alignment, and Mexico relying on North American industrial chains to form a more binding platform, gradually constructing a Western Hemisphere institutionalized cooperation network. At the implementation pathway level, the United States employs "government-enterprise" and "enterprise-enterprise" collaborative models: the former involves agenda-setting and financing guidance by institutions such as the State Department, DFC, and EXIM, with the "Supply Chain Resilience Initiative" requiring minerals to enter the U.S. production system; the latter focuses offtake agreements, processing, and industrial chain ownership, exemplified by the Brazilian Serra Verde project, where DFC loans pushed for shortening offtake agreements with China and shifting toward Western buyer networks, and in Chile, facilitating the落地 of a General Motors-backed lithium project, achieving advancement from upstream acquisition to complete supply chain organization. At the rule competition level, the United States employs narratives such as "market distortion" and "economic coercion" to raise the rule adaptation costs for Chinese-funded enterprises, conducts "problematizing" operations on projects such as Peru's Chancay Port, and compresses China's control over mid- and downstream chains through financing screening and trade preferences, reshaping originally open cooperation into exclusive supply chain arrangements serving strategic competition.

III. Differentiated Responses of Latin American Countries to U.S. Critical Mineral Strategy

This section analyzes the differentiated response patterns of Latin American countries to U.S. critical mineral strategy, noting that national policy choices are primarily shaped by two sets of factors: relative position in the tripartite resource game among the United States, China, and the home country, and differences in priority ranking between political autonomy and economic development objectives. Based on this logic, Latin American countries' responses are categorized into three types. The first type, "active alignment," includes Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Paraguay, which actively incorporate critical mineral issues into foreign policy and industrial policy toward the United States, seeking capital, technology, and market support through signing cooperation agreements and participating in institutional platforms, transforming U.S.-led supply chain restructuring into development opportunities for themselves; among these, Argentina and Peru emphasize resource exports and investment attraction, while Ecuador and Paraguay place greater emphasis on institutional alignment to "enter through the platform." The second type, "selective cooperation," encompasses Mexico, Brazil, and Chile, which maintain clear strategic boundaries while conducting institutionalized engagement with the United States: Mexico achieves a balance between "institutional cooperation" and "sovereignty insistence" through the USMCA framework; Brazil advances project cooperation openness while maintaining industry autonomy orientation, preventing becoming a tool for great power decoupling; Chile simultaneously pursues institutionalized cooperation with the United States and domestic resource governance arrangements. The third type, "prudent and balanced openness," is represented by Bolivia, which maintains diverse cooperation partners including China, the United States, and Russia while ensuring resource sovereignty through the state lithium company, raising thresholds for external cooperation through internal constraints such as parliamentary review and local benefit distribution, forming a response pathway supported by state leadership, diversified cooperation, and balanced diplomacy.

IV. Effectiveness and Limitations of U.S. Implementation of Latin American Critical Mineral Strategy

This section analyzes the actual effects and constraining factors of U.S. Latin American critical mineral strategy during Trump's second term. First, U.S. policy instruments possess defensive and exploratory characteristics, with localized interventions such as the "Gold Vault Plan" insufficient to support its transformation from "rule initiator" to "chain restructuring dominator," with a significant gap between strategic objectives and the carrying capacity of the instrument system. Second, Latin American resource countries continuously reset boundaries through the institutional resurgence of "new extractivism," with Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and others forming institutional screening mechanisms through state control, environmental review, and local consultation, making it difficult for the United States to unilaterally determine cooperation terms. Third, China's existing presence in Latin American mineral chains is difficult to substitute, with Latin American countries tending to seek better conditions in U.S.-China competition rather than automatic exclusion. Finally, the ultra-long cycle of mining development exceeding 16.5 years, commercial viability fluctuations, and U.S. mid- and downstream capability gaps constitute rigid constraints; if raw ore export growth lacks synchronous internalization of processing and technological capabilities, value-added will continue to flow out along existing global networks.

V. Conclusion

This section analyzes the dual positioning of U.S. Latin American critical mineral strategy during Trump's second term, namely, internally promoting full industrial chain "internalization" to repair industrial resilience, and externally using critical minerals as a fulcrum to advance Western Hemisphere supply chain regionalization and competition with China; notes that Latin American resource countries, while introducing capital and technology, insist on resource sovereignty and policy autonomy, forming boundary constraints on U.S. strategy; emphasizes that although the United States has made progress in agenda-setting and localized cooperation, it is constrained by development cycles, commercial risks, industrial capability gaps, and existing supply chain connections, with limited strategic effectiveness, making the Latin American critical mineral issue an important window for observing the interweaving of supply chain security, industrial restructuring, and great power competition in the Western Hemisphere.