As a window of opportunity for US critical minerals diplomacy opens in South America, it should be leveraged by prioritizing climate and environmental concerns alongside Latin America’s ambitions for green industrialization.
With the election of José Antonio Kast this past Sunday in Chile, a political shift is trending toward a growing number of conservative governments in Latin America. A new wave of conservative figures and political parties have made inroads in Argentina and Bolivia. Alongside Chile, these countries have the potential to become key partners for US critical minerals diplomacy, if not other strategic areas, but US investment will be necessary to make the case that stronger hemispheric ties are on the horizon.
In addition to greater US investment, the Trump Administration could become well regarded in South America and across the Global South by moderating its approach on environmental issues. The United States continues to remain an outlier, as it formalizes an exit from the Paris Agreement in the coming year — joining the ranks of Iran, Libya, and Yemen — an outcome that some environmental proponents argue will only benefit China’s trajectory in becoming the world’s first “electrostate.”
The Mineral-Rich World of South America
Against the backdrop of strategic competition with China, the Trump Administration could begin connecting its desire for South America’s critical minerals with the desire to foster greater US leadership on clean energy technologies and showcase greater awareness of the growing concerns over the environment and societal demands to protect its security at home and abroad.
Taken together, the geological endowments of these three Latin American nations form South America’s Lithium Triangle, where more than half of the world’s lithium resources and reserves are concentrated. Australia and Chile alone represent 75 percent of global lithium production, but social and environmental issues, including water scarcity, remain critical challenges.
Among the riches of the Atacama Desert, Chile also holds the world’s largest copper reserves and leads global production in it. New government incentives in neighboring Argentina seek to attract investment for the development of its copper resources amid global shortages and increased premiums on the metal. Bolivia has so far lagged behind its neighbors, with limited commercial exploration and development of its lithium reserves. But with the recent election of Rodrigo Paz, pro-market reforms could likely focus efforts on a rapid expansion of the country’s lithium and mining sectors to jumpstart the national economy.
Meanwhile, the development of rare earth deposits remains of interest across the region. South American governments aligned with the Trump Administration could offer a narrow window for the United States to gain important ground in strengthening strategic economic relations, especially as it relates to increased rivalries and competition with China, which controls 19 out of 20 strategic minerals and holds an average market share of seventy percent for global refining, according to the International Energy Agency.
But the United States will need to play its cards wisely, steering clear of moves that could provoke powerful interests, inflame social or political divisions, or unsettle allied governments that want deeper US investment — but not at the expense of social cohesion. This may be easier said than done, as the Trump Administration is pursuing a prioritization of hard power projection with limited consideration of the historic and vexing challenges that have plagued Latin America’s development and political independence since the early 19th century.
Simply supporting mining deregulation, without consideration of the potential social and environmental impacts, may only expose industry stakeholders to future challenges and uncertainty as firms seek to navigate explosive demand from sectors as diverse as clean energy, defense, and the advancements in chips and artificial intelligence technologies.
Could the Proposed “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine Backfire?
The Trump Administration’s National Security Strategy has upended prior US foreign policy priorities and the bipartisan consensus regarding global challenges. Previous administrations strongly prioritized issues ranging from democracy promotion and the protection of human rights to assessing the growing impacts of climate change on migration and other US national security interests.
However, administration officials now view a doctrine of prior centuries as foundational to how the United States should project power in the modern era. Unsurprisingly, the strategy was viewed poorly by its European allies and adds further doubt and mistrust in Brussels, where Russian leadership has sought to weaken, if not fracture, European integration and relations with the United States as part of a decade of military and hybrid campaigns to contest Ukrainian sovereignty and capture territory, including through recent diplomatic efforts.
But across the Atlantic, it is the growing focus on the Western Hemisphere that may cause unforeseen challenges, if not indirect costs, for future US foreign policymaking closer to home, weakening the value of democratic and US-based partnerships that support prosperity and stability throughout the region. While recent polling among Latin American citizens has shown a growing desire for conservative policies and populist leaders focused on security and immigration, this may prove only temporary — part of the ebb and flow of political priorities and public opinion.
In other words, the Latin American left, despite waning in influence in recent elections — has indeed experienced successful electoral outcomes that came in waves during the so-called “pink tide” beginning in the late 1990s with the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Successive waves in recent years reached several countries, including Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil, where citizens chose leftist leaders at the ballot box. Key to their success was focusing national attention on inequality and lack of economic and social mobility, as well as the role of US interventionism, proxy wars, and human rights violations during the Cold War, which helped fuel anti-American sentiment and a desire for change across the continent.
The current posture of US foreign policy in the region, including a possible military intervention in Venezuela and its resulting humanitarian impacts, could overextend the goodwill held by like-minded leaders aligned with President Trump. At worst, it could become detrimental to US relations in the future by influencing reactionary politics, pushing once allied nations into the arms of Beijing at the expense of long-term US interests.
For now, however, the tides have shifted, and America First has become regional in scope. Conservative leaders such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro (whose son intends to run for president in 2026) and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele have become well-aligned and supportive of the MAGA worldview and vice versa. The idea of a so-called Bukele model has garnered significant attention across the Americas — where focus on security and a state apparatus for “mano dura” (or “iron fist”) policies has ushered in more support among citizens than concerns over the quality of democracy or the protection of human rights.
The environment has also seen increasing focus. Now, policies meant to protect public health and the natural world, or to address climate change more broadly, have been argued as too restrictive and as limiting economic growth and development — part of an oppressive “ideology” that dominates global attention and encroaches upon economic freedom. But such views tend to feed false narratives through the proliferation of climate misinformation and disinformation and could face a backlash in the future as climate trends continue and natural disasters increase across the Western Hemisphere — where such impacts are projected to force some six to 18 million children, adolescents, and youth living in Latin America and the Caribbean into poverty by 2030, according to UNICEF. Absent a stronger focus on these challenges, the economic advantages of deeper US engagement risk becoming catalysts for wider national-level protests and instability.
It’s the Environment, Stupid: Examining Past Social Conflicts in Latin America
There are several reasons why a greater focus on the social and environmental impacts of increasingly strategic industries, such as the mining of critical minerals, should not be abandoned. First, there is a growing demand for responsible, ethical, and resilient critical mineral supply chains — especially among younger demographics that value climate action and tend to support economic boycotts of major brands and companies that fail to deliver on labor and environmental standards.
Here, the United States has an important opportunity to increase its visibility as a supporter of sustainable practices, but only if the Trump Administration can avoid greenwashing and pursue meaningful adjustments in its current policy and views on climate.
Take, for example, the tremendous importance of cobalt. More than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt is produced by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but this production has become synonymous with forced labor and human rights abuses, as well as environmental damage. Cobalt has also been cited as responsible for driving resource conflicts among state and non-state actors alike, where President Trump has sought to broker peace agreements, despite recent setbacks. China has also faced allegations of forced labor and grave human rights abuses in Xinjiang, a major hub for the processing of critical minerals. Likewise, Chinese processing of rare earth mining has contributed to dangerous contaminants in Southeast Asia’s Mekong tributaries in Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia, according to recent analysis by the Stimson Center.
In Latin America, environmental concerns are not a recent phenomenon or part of externally imposed ideologies but are instead deeply rooted in historical experience — creating both an opportunity and an imperative for the United States to differentiate its approach from the mineral-driven conflicts and pollution seen elsewhere. Making the Western Hemisphere a sustainable hub for critical mineral supply chains and working with US partners to channel investment is crucial.
Prior to gaining independence from Spain, countries such as Peru and Bolivia routinely saw major rebellions and uprisings against their colonial masters — opposing a system of slave labor called mita that targeted indigenous peasants, resulted in high taxation, and exposed those working in the mines to mercury poisoning. While much has changed over the centuries and the role of technology has increased, the concept of extractivist exploitation by foreign forces has remained a bitter point of contestation. Today, mining firms struggle to maintain legitimacy and good community relations — despite the best of intentions and a growing focus on improving environmental governance, as well as tackling emissions — where direct mining operations represent between four percent and seven percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Without improved community and stakeholder engagement in areas of concentrated mineral wealth, unequal power dynamics tend to result in drastic outcomes that harm all parties involved — putting large-scale investments and projects that can support local communities, but only with their buy-in and involvement, at risk.
More recently, these dynamics have played out in Chile, where local communities and Indigenous groups protested in the Atacama Desert last year, blocking major roadways to obstruct firms extracting lithium. In Peru, the Las Bambas Mine, one of the largest copper mines in the world, was shut down for nearly two months in 2022 and could soon experience renewed protests in April related to the country’s upcoming presidential election. Similar mining protests occurred in Panama in 2023, and Argentina may face backlash over plans to ease mining regulations that could impact the country’s glaciers and water quality. Bolivia is also no stranger to widespread protests, having experienced several upheavals regarding extractivism during the past several decades, but none perhaps more consequential than the Guerra del Gas, or Bolivian gas conflict, which led to President Sánchez de Lozada resigning, followed by the rise of Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) Party.
The Path Forward for the United States
Understanding the global pressures of environmental degradation and the geopolitics of climate change is critical to longer-term strategic relations, especially concerning the increased competition and rivalry between the United States and China, where the latter has become a top trading partner for most of the region, displacing the United States.
Now, with significant changes underway and a “MAGA tide” enveloping capitals from Buenos Aires to La Paz and Santiago, the White House and US foreign policymakers would be wise to not assume outright victory. At least not yet.
US officials in the Trump Administration should speak softly and, instead of a big, menacing stick in the Caribbean, carry a rather large and enticing bag of carrots to revamp economic statecraft in South America, including opportunities for the transfer of environmental technologies to make mining more productive and sustainable. Here, soft power can play an outsized role and greatly differentiate the United States from China — where US leadership can deliver on innovation for the mining sector and bring new sustainability solutions to fruition by supporting advancements in direct lithium extraction, among other technologies.
Even better would be to deliver on what the region has been demanding for years — a seat at the table and greater opportunities for “green” industrialization and improved integration within global value chains, bridging US nearshoring and manufacturing opportunities as part of renewed technological and strategic relations in the Western Hemisphere. This would be the most effective way to build goodwill not only among friendly conservative governments but also leftist administrations should the tides change in the future.
Such an approach must center the environment as a cornerstone of cooperation by moderating, if not profoundly readjusting, the administration’s current stance on climate change. Not doing so may only influence greater social tensions and national protests in a region of critical importance to US interests as well as the global energy transition. The region is also a place where, undoubtedly, China will seek to fill the leadership gap left by the United States amid growing calls for climate action and economic partnerships from the global South.
About the Author: Anders Beal
Anders Beal is a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center Latin America Program and a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. From 2013 to 2014, he served as Assistant to the Executive Secretary in the Chilean American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham Chile), where he supported bilateral cooperation on energy issues through the US-Chile Energy Business Council. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish & economics and a master’s degree in global policy from the University of Maine.
Image: Shutterstock/Steve Allen
