09

Attempts to grab Greenland, Ukraine & Venezuela are examples of modern-day colonialism. The US President Donald Trump’s aggressive expansionism is based on the world’s search for ‘rare earth’, an essential ingredient of modern technology in defense and the AI sector.

Political double-speak is nowhere more evident than in today’s geo-political situations. The US airforce plane lifted the president and his wife of Venezuela from their residence at the stealth of midnight on charges illegal narcotic deals and imprisoned them in Washington. The US has always been attracted to world’s largest oil reserves of Venezuela (303 billion barrels which is greater than Saudi Arabia’s 267 billion) but none of the predecessors of Trump could cross the limit which Trump did. Added to these natural reserves of oil, are Orinoco Mining Arc and Cerro Impacto which are the two rare earth concentrates in Venezuela, valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. So allegations of narcotic trade are just an excuse. The disadvantages of Venezuela are its political instability and lack of modern day technology to extract, at global competitive rates, its huge oil reserves and critical minerals.

In many ways, Ukraine is the heartland of Russia’s natural resources. It became independent after the disintegration of the USSR; but Russia could never reconcile to the fact that Ukraine was a separate entity. Prolonged war continues between Russia and Ukraine, because Russia will never let go Ukraine, President Putin claiming that ‘same blood’ flows through the two countries. Again it’s double-speak. Donald Trump enters into the scene, and in the guise of negotiating peace, says he will help Ukraine if it agrees to let the US be a partner in ‘extracting’ its huge critical minerals. Unconfirmed reports on the worth of rare earth & critical minerals in Ukraine run into trillions of dollars. In the Russia-Ukraine war, NATO plays an important role in supporting Ukraine, though Ukraine denies it, while Putin claims that Ukraine has brought the US at its doorsteps through the presence of NATO troops.

President Trump’s claims to Greenland are perhaps the most brazen of his moves. He wants to make Greenland a part of the US because he thinks Russia and China are the growing threats to the Arctic region. Trump has weaponised his tariff rates; and he threatened the European countries that he would increase the tariff rates for trade with US manifold if they do not agree to his moves for Greenland. Though at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos Trump mellowed a bit and did not refer to clamping of trade tariffs, he continued to pursue his Greenland dreams. He agreed to negotiate with the NATO chief – a military outfit, where the US and the European Union work together. One of NATO’s rules is that if any member of NATO is attacked, other members will jointly come to its support. Denmark, which controls Greenland, has agreed to talk with the US. Greenland which is supposed to be 8th richest country in terms of critical mineral wealth, did not draw the attention of the US so far since, it was traditionally considered to be inaccessible, being a part of the frozen arctic region. But climate change in recent years has removed much of its ice cover and has opened up to ocean liners shorter trade routes through the Arctic Circle. The allure of the newer trade routes has made Greenland an essential stopover for the ocean liners. The US  entry into these newer trade routes professedly to counter the Russian & Chinese ‘invasions’, hides the greed for the 1.5 million metric tonne of rare earth in Greenland which has become more extractible with the thinning of ice sheets.

So the worldwide search for rare earth intensifies and does not leave out the Indian shores. India is already in a partner-ship with the US in explorations of rare earth. The Aravalli hills controversy is just the beginning.