Mineral sovereignty: Brazil × United States

Two powers, two industrial policies and a single link in the chain at stake: refining. How Law 15,506/2026 and Proclamation 11001 came to pull the same mineral in opposite directions, and what that demands of anyone investing, mining or exporting from Brazil.

Critical is not strategic

Vocabulary is not neutral. In Brazil, Law 15,506/2026 separates two concepts. Critical is a mineral needed by key sectors whose supply is insufficient, unstable or vulnerable: weak domestic output, import dependence, concentrated suppliers. Potash and phosphate are the classic examples. Strategic is a mineral with significant reserves and weight in the trade surplus, in technological and regional development or in decarbonisation: niobium, iron, gold.

The United States works with a single, importer's concept: a mineral essential to the economy or national security, with a supply chain vulnerable to disruption (Energy Act of 2020). Brazil needs both lenses at once, because it is a vulnerable importer and an exporting power in the same chain.

Two lists, two logics

Brazil's 2021 list (MME/CTAPME Resolution 2/2021, in force until the CIMCE issues the new one) answers three questions: do we depend on imports? does high technology need it? does it earn a trade surplus? That is why it includes gold and iron ore, which the US list ignores.

The final US list of 2025, with 60 minerals, answers one question only: how much US GDP would be lost if one country cut off supply for a year? The USGS ran over 1,200 scenarios across 84 minerals; a mineral qualifies if the expected loss exceeds US$2 million or if it has a single domestic producer. By the same test silver, metallurgical coal, antimony, gallium and germanium come in, none of which Brazil lists.

Gold exposes the difference. In Brazil, gold qualifies through the surplus door. In the United States, the model found that a gold cut-off would even raise GDP: local miners would gain more from higher prices than industry would lose.

How much Brazil weighs

Brazil produces 93% of the world's niobium and is its largest producer. Niobium aside, Brazil's mineral power is still potential in the ground rather than output: second in graphite reserves (24%) and rare-earth reserves (15%, with only 0.5% of output), third in manganese (17%), second in iron-ore production (16%). In gold, the 13th largest producer, with about 80 tonnes a year, 2.4% of the world (USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026).

The election changed no rules. It gave them a horizon

On 16 September 2026, Law 15,506 and Decree 13,118, the critical and strategic minerals framework, came into force. On 25 October, Lula was re-elected with 51.79% of valid votes. Those who wrote the framework will regulate and apply it. Continuity is a signal to markets: the 2026 framework stops being a campaign bet and becomes State policy.

What the CIMCE is

The National Council for the Industrialisation of Critical and Strategic Minerals (CIMCE) reports to the Presidency and is chaired by the Chief of Staff's Office, with up to fifteen federal representatives plus states, municipalities, the private sector and universities. The law carries no list: the council writes it and reviews it every four years. It approves projects, picks the priority ones and clears who may access incentives. It approves changes of control, international supply contracts and partnerships, and any transfer or encumbrance of mining titles.

It is not advisory: breaching its conditions triggers sanctions under the law itself and under mining legislation (Law 15,506/2026, arts. 3 and 41). In practice, Brazil now has an investment-screening mechanism for its subsoil, along the lines of the US CFIUS and Regulation (EU) 2019/452.

What about gold?

In the United States, gold is off the critical list yet inside Executive Order 14241, which fast-tracks domestic output. In Brazil, it fits the legal definition of strategic and was on the official 2021 list. If the CIMCE puts it on the new list, buying gold miners and signing international supply contracts will need the council's approval.

What the law offers, and what it requires in return

Law 15,506/2026 turns 20% of spending on processing and transformation into a CSLL tax credit, offsettable or refundable in cash, capped at R$1 billion a year from 2030 to 2034; it provides for a federal stake of up to R$2 billion in the guarantee fund (FGAM) and opens access to incentivised debentures, REIDI and the PPI (arts. 9, 17, 18, 21, 40, 47 and 48). Textbook industrial policy: subsidy conditional on performance. Nothing is automatic.

On the debit side: clearance as a priority project by the CIMCE, credit proportional to value added in Brazil, minimum local content and supply to the home market, exploration licences capped at ten years (arts. 16, 18, 30, 35 and 43). The logic is simple: minerals processed in Brazil, not exported raw.

Proclamation 11001: the target is the middle link

Signed on 14 January 2026 under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Proclamation 11001 starts from a diagnosis: the United States relies 100% on imports for 12 critical minerals and 50% or more for another 29. Mining at home is not enough if refining depends on another country.

The proclamation imposed no tariffs. It directed Commerce and the USTR to negotiate agreements with trading partners, considering price floors, with a first report in 180 days; if negotiation fails, minimum import prices and other measures follow, and the Commerce report went as far as suggesting tariffs. Washington swapped tariffs for the negotiating table. But it did not wait for a deal to act.

A national-security input is not a label. It is a legal regime

By treating a mineral as a national-security matter, Washington takes it out of market logic and subjects it to four levers of State power: trade (Section 232: tariffs, quotas and minimum prices on processed minerals), command (Defense Production Act: the Executive funds output and may prioritise and allocate materials), capital (the DFC, EXIM and the Department of War finance, buy and guarantee floor prices, abroad too) and permits (fast-track permitting and priority on federal land for domestic projects).

The decisive detail: Executive Order 14241 directs EXIM to secure raw mineral feedstock from across the world for processing on American soil.

Washington does not wait for treaties. It buys the output

Serra Verde, in Goiás, is the example. US$1.55 billion to buy 100% of Phase 1 for 15 years at a guaranteed floor price: US$750 million from the Department of War, US$500 million in a bank credit line and US$300 million in Defense Logistics Agency purchases, plus US$565 million of DFC financing for the mine itself.

Two industrial policies fight over the same link

Along the chain mine → concentrate → refining → product, Law 15,506 pulls refining towards Brazil and Proclamation 11001 pulls it towards the United States. Hence three risks for a Brazilian producer. Supply capture: long-term offtakes, like Serra Verde's 15 years, lock in output before the home-market supply requirement can bite. Tariff risk: without a bilateral deal, Brazilian processed products are exposed to US tariffs and minimum import prices. Dual jurisdiction: the same supply contract needs CIMCE approval here and must meet the US buyer's origin rules there.

The risk is not picking a side. It is signing with one and being blocked by the other.

Where the two paths meet

At the CIMCE. Washington can keep financing on its own. But taking control of mining companies, or signing a new international supply contract, will have to go through the council, and any agreement will be negotiated with the government that runs it. For anyone investing, mining or exporting, the question is no longer whether there will be rules. It is how to negotiate with two sets at once.