Trump is synonymous with the grift. He is grifting on critical minerals deals too, unsurprisingly. Incoming reports show that the administration’s push to secure these resources has become a family-and-friends cash cow.
Trump’s sons and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s children are especially positioned to profit from billion dollar deals. Cantor Fitzgerald — led by Lutnick for more than 30 years before he handed ownership to his children after becoming Trump’s Commerce Secretary — is all over these deals.
Critical minerals: Hottest cash cow
The New York Times (NYT) reported that the Trump administration has provided, or is considering providing more than $8.9 billion in federal funding to 14 companies with financial ties to the Trump or Lutnick families. All of these firms are in lockstep with the US government, supporting its critical minerals and mining projects.
Critical minerals, according to the NYT, are the “hottest” ticket in town. Financial services firm BMO Capital Markets has counted 60 critical minerals projects worldwide. These have cumulatively received conditional and final approval from the federal government, backed by $18.6 billion in federal loans and other financial support since Trump returned to office. This is the largest amount in US history.
The BMO’s vice president has said:
The level of activity compared to, say, 2023 is like night and day.
According to the report:
This emboldened mixing of federal policymaking and personal business began shortly after Mr. Trump returned to office last year, when the Trump and Lutnick sons played a role in billions of dollars of cryptocurrency deals as the fathers helped set policies that supercharged the crypto industry.
Now, the families’ ethically tangled pursuit of profits is extending to the new arms race for critical minerals.
Kaz Resources
The most striking example is the Kazakhstan tungsten deal. According to the NYT, the US offered $1.6 billion in financing for a Kazakh tungsten venture led by Cove Kaz Capital — a mining investment and development firm working with US clients — in 2025. Trump personally negotiated the deal with Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and Lutnick was heavily involved throughout the process.
On 31 October, six days before the agreement was signed, Trump’s sons took a 20 percent stake in Skyline Builders through Dominari Securities. Skyline Builders later merged with Cove Kaz Capital and was renamed Kaz Resources, the company now developing the tungsten project.
Lutnick’s sons helped to raise $210 million for the deal through Cantor Fitzgerald. The developer has since asked the Pentagon for another $400 million.
Vulcan Elements
Vulcan Elements offers another case study in how this network operates. The NYT also reported that in August 2025, Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, took an undisclosed stake in Vulcan Elements, a North Carolina rare-earth magnet startup.
Three months later, the Pentagon granted Vulcan a $620 million loan. The company’s valuation jumped from around $200 million to nearly $2 billion.
The deal was initiated by Peter Navarro, a White House adviser and close friend of Trump Jr. Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was considering, Vulcan’s was the only one pushed by a top presidential aide.
USA Rare Earth
Then there is the USA Rare Earth deal.
USA Rare Earth raised $1.5 billion from private investors in a capital raise overseen by none other than Cantor Fitzgerald
The NYT reported that this month, the Trump administration committed an eyewatering $1.6 billion in financial support to USA Rare Earth.
The potential Greenland heist
Nor is this pattern confined to a single continent.
Just this week, Trump revived his bid for the US to acquire Greenland, threatening to pull all American armed forces out of Europe after the continent repeatedly pushed back.
Trump is eyeing Greenland for its mining opportunities. According to Global Witness, his cronies are ready to cash in on Trump’s Greenland policy.
Critical Metals Corp has become the majority stakeholder in Tanbreez Mining Greenland, which owns one of the world’s largest rare earth deposits, and has received a $120 million letter of interest from the US Export-Import Bank.
The company has also received investment from Cantor Fitzgerald (of course), and an agreement to supply rare earths to a Louisiana refinery. Governor Jeff Landry, who announced the refinery, was later appointed Trump’s Special Envoy to Greenland.
The robbery of DRC critical minerals
The resource grab extends to Africa too, where the Trump administration has secured a strategic partnership with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The deal, signed at the White House in December 2025, grants the US special access to vast reserves of copper, cobalt, and lithium — metals essential for the production of microchips, EV batteries, and weapons systems.
The US Development Finance Corporation invested $600 million in Orion Resource Partners, which secured a 40 percent stake in Glencore’s operations, despite Progressive International documenting Orion’s bribery and environmental cover-ups in Guinea.
Trump ally Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, is positioning for security contracts through his company Vectus Global, Progressive International noted.
The Canary recently profiled the profile of Prince by the FT, where his bloodthirsty mercenary activities are normalised.
Trump seems to be running his presidency like a family-and-friends enrichment scheme, to put it mildly.
Featured image via the Canary
