US backs $7.4 billion Korea Zinc plant to cut China out of critical minerals

The Trump administration moved ahead with a $7.4 billion plan for a new critical minerals plant that Korea Zinc will build inside the US. The US government asked Korea Zinc to take on the job as supply-chain risks kept increasing for metals used in cars, defense systems, chips and every other sector that hates depending on China.

Korea Zinc called itself the world’s biggest zinc smelter and said Washington reached out with a clear request: build a site that cuts China out of the flow of key materials.

The company said the new site will make antimony, germanium, gallium, and a long list of other metals, including zinc, lead, copper, gold and silver.

These materials sit at the core of chipmaking and electronics, and the US wants them coming from anywhere but China. Korea Zinc wrote in its filing that commercial output will start step-by-step sometime between 2027 and 2029.

Shares of Korea Zinc jumped 27% after local media reported the agreement, which shows how fast markets react when Washington signs off on a deal this big.

US and Korea move money into new joint venture

The deal followed a $350 billion South Korean investment pledge tied to a tariff deal signed in late October.

Korea Zinc’s chair, Choi Yun-birm, had joined a South Korean business group that visited Washington in August, and the plan now ranks as one of South Korea’s largest pushes into the US critical minerals sector.

Korea Zinc’s board approved a foreign joint venture structure on Monday and said the venture will include the US government as a direct party.

The filing said the joint venture will raise around $2 billion, and the rest of the funding will come from US government loans, US government grants and capital put in by Korea Zinc.

The company said, “The facilities will help us secure a strategic status in the US critical minerals market and strengthen our competitiveness. It will also boost our corporate and shareholder value by helping us secure future growth drivers.”

The statement showed a clear plan to anchor Korea Zinc inside the US supply chain.

Korea Zinc said it plans to acquire a former Nyrstar smelting site in Tennessee and rebuild the whole place so it can produce 13 metals plus sulphuric acid for chipmaking.

The production targets were specific: 300,000 tonnes of zinc, 35,000 tonnes of copper, 200,000 tonnes of lead, and 5,100 tonnes of rare earths each year once operations scale. That level of output marks one of the biggest attempts yet to pull critical minerals away from China’s control.

The US and its allies still rely heavily on China for most critical minerals, and everyone knows Beijing has strict export controls on materials like antimony, indium, tellurium, cadmium and germanium, all of which Korea Zinc already produces.

Beijing said last week it would issue general licenses for rare earth exports as part of the trade war truce reached with the US last month.

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