Categories: Base Metals / Energy / General Market Commentary / Precious Metals
Topics: General Base Metals / General Energy / General Market Commentary / General Precious Metals

Prinsights Global Founder Dr. Nomi Prins on Navigating the Resource Cold War & Commodity Supercycle

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is author, geopolitical financial expert, journalist, and of course, the founder of Prinsights Global. I'm excited to be speaking with Dr. Nomi Prins. Dr. Nomi, how are you today? Our first time actually interacting in a public domain. Excited to have you. How are you doing?

Dr. Nomi Prins: I am doing well, and I’m so excited to be connecting with you electronically and publicly. Gerardo, I am just really excited for this opportunity, so thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: I love this. We started chatting briefly off-air, and about 20 seconds into it I said, “No… let’s save that enthusiasm for the interview and our conversation.”

We have this unique situation in time where we have, in my opinion, a hard-asset bull market coinciding with what I call a natural resource Cold War — and it isn’t so cold anymore. It’s really out in the open now.

It used to be whispers a decade ago, when we had the first rare earth hiccups and early warnings of what was coming. But now it’s spreading to almost the entire commodity space. And I know you’re working on a book that ties in perfectly with geopolitics intersecting with what I think will be one of the most historic bull markets in the resource space.

I’d love your take on where we are in that cycle and why you’re excited to cover it, especially in your new book.

Dr. Nomi Prins: Yes, we are at the beginning of the next cycle — and I’d almost say it’s not just a cycle. It’s bigger than that. It’s an era. We’re really in a commodity era unlike anything we’ve seen historically. And I never say things that big, but it’s true because of some of the things you mentioned and that we’re watching unfold.

So many things are connecting — where global superpowers see themselves and want to be, where commodities come into their spaces and rewrite the map of global power, and where supply must meet current demand, let alone the future demand coming from developing economies, infrastructure buildouts, and shifting defense needs.

All of this is coming together through natural resources, through specific commodities. And what’s being written and discussed in the United States — and in governments around the world — is much more frenetic and urgent than it has been since the Cold War. 

Only now, there are many more materials that are necessary, and expansions happening, given where supply stands. It’s just super exciting.

Gerardo Del Real: I have to think part of your upcoming book touches on how asleep at the wheel the U.S. and the West were in the rare earth space — a phenomenal example. In the late ’90s, China came in and started buying assets left and right, then forged new alliances with continents like Africa, laying the groundwork for decades of critical metals dominance. We got a preview in 2010 of what could happen.

And now in 2025, we’re really seeing the consequence of the U.S. and the West being asleep at the wheel. I actually commend this administration for the urgency with which it has cut red tape and encouraged — you mentioned copper, we could talk rare earths — but encouraged the advancement of a North American critical metals supply chain.

How far behind do you think we are? Are we really decades behind? Is it worth the effort we’re taking on now even if it doesn’t pay off for several years?

Dr. Nomi Prins: Both of those things are true. I absolutely agree with you — we are decades behind, and the efforts will pay off because they have to. We can’t continue to be behind.

This administration has done some interesting things if you tie it back to what was done earlier. Under Trump 1.0, the critical minerals list was repositioned and readjusted to look at the materials we lack from a strategic national defense perspective. Tariffs were placed on some of them.

The Biden administration actually continued some of those — like on rare earths and permanent magnets — to try and ringfence a bit of processing and allied sourcing. But this administration has now gone forward with what was positioned earlier, really accelerating where we need to be from an allied supply and processing standpoint.

So many firsts: we have 232 — a section of the Trade Act that President John F. Kennedy signed right before the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to identify what’s needed for national defense. The supplies are different now — we didn’t really have permanent magnets back then — but the concept was there.

It’s the first time, for example, that copper has been investigated and positioned under a 232 critical mineral perspective. It’s the first time uranium processing through UEC’s Sweetwater facility in Wyoming has been fast-tracked under a permitting process that used to only accelerate things like steel and aluminum for industrial uses.

So things are moving — in processing, in administration policy, and in tariffs. And if we peel back the rhetoric and the way tariffs have been presented — because we can get lost in that…

Gerardo Del Real: A lot of peeling back, Nomi.

Dr. Nomi Prins: So much peeling back. That is why I’m writing this book as if I were looking at this 100 years from now, but looking at the present so I can peel back some of that stuff. Because underneath much of it — not all of it, but a lot of it — is the awareness you just brought up: the awareness that we are behind, and we can’t be behind. That’s just reality. And how do you get to where you need to go when you’re already so far behind?

A lot of things have to happen. Permits have to be fast-tracked. Critical mineral resources have to be sourced. Allied countries and neutral jurisdictions have to be befriended. That’s the piece that’s a little bit missing right now from the standpoint of where these tariffs are at. But it’s also some of the cutouts within the tariffs with respect to rare earths and certain critical minerals from certain countries.

There are things beneath the headlines where countries are working with each other — for example, Brazil and the United States — to facilitate supply and potentially processing. But just one more “first time,” and then I’ll stop.

Gerardo Del Real: No, please, I love this.

Dr. Nomi Prins: This is also a time in which the U.S. has gone into equity participation in processing — by taking a participation percentage of MP, by taking a percentage of Intel. This administration has basically gone beyond wartime- or financial-crisis-related equity participations into future positioning. And I think we’re going to see more of that as an accelerant, both within this administration and in those to come.

Gerardo Del Real: I’ve got to ask you — before I ask you what your favorite commodities are and by favorite I mean the ones you think we could profit from the most. I know you’re heavily involved in the rare earth space, but you’re also very knowledgeable across the resource space. So I’m curious to hear your take there. 

But before we get there, I have to ask: how did you feel about the government coming in and taking a 10% stake in a company like Intel? Let me just ask you the question instead of telling you how I felt about it. 

Dr. Nomi Prins: Intel, as distinct from MP, is a different case. Initially under the CHIPS Act, there were billions appropriated under the Biden administration to help Intel. But it didn’t quite facilitate the competitive speed Washington was expecting — not just for Intel, but for chips in general relative to China and Taiwan.

And when I say Washington, I don’t just mean the Biden administration. I mean the deep state — the individuals in Intel and in DC who don’t get the headlines but have been part of the fabric of Washington for decades. And I don’t think it went fast enough.

So this equity participation, I think, was to accelerate that desperation of having some sort of ringfence on chips and chip production. It was an act of necessity, and to some extent desperation, to try and fast-track through investment rather than just permitting with the hope of having an accelerating impact in the chip space.

The chip space is obviously tied to processing from a finished product perspective, but it’s also tied to securing rare earths and processing the minerals involved at the base level. The administration is trying to do both, but that’s where Intel comes in. It’s a sign of being late — and a sign of saying, “Look, we need equity participations so we can effectively have a touchpoint in these companies.”

I don’t mean managing a private company publicly, but just having a bit more of a touch into Intel.

Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, interesting. You’re a director — we talked rare earths a bit — of Meteoric Rare Earths. My question is: being an expert in that space, how do you see the next several years playing out ideally? And how can a company like Meteoric, for example, help fill and bridge some of that gap that currently exists? Because it’s a significant gap between where we need to be and where we are right now. But within that gap is a heck of a lot of opportunity, right?

Dr. Nomi Prins: Absolutely. One of the reasons I joined the board of Meteoric a year and a half ago, in April, is that it’s not just the company but also the asset. It is one of the largest ionic clay assets on earth and among the closest to surface.

When you talk about needing a head start — or having to come from behind like the United States — Brazil is now in that kind of position in rare earths. They’ve always had fertile resources, but the geological and geopolitical combination unfolding in Brazil right now is really exciting.

At the moment, China dominates not just investment but also processing, as we know. Between 80% to 90% of rare earth processing and 60% to 70% of supply — depending on which stats you use — involve Chinese participation.

So from the standpoint of having a massive ionic clay deposit with the rare earths necessary for permanent magnets — and of the 17 rare earth elements, only some are critical — Meteoric is strategically important. MP Materials, which the U.S. recently took an equity stake in, doesn’t really have all of the materials necessary for defense, for the permanent magnets that go into satellites, drones, and future defense systems.

That’s a key strategic component for the U.S. — not just for today, but for decades to come as a superpower. Brazil sits in this pivotal location with both the geological assets and a growing geopolitical awareness. It’s not going to happen overnight, which is why I call it an evolution of awareness for the Brazilian government. They’re still coming to grips with what they actually hold — not just in the ground, but in terms of future strategic power.

Meteoric is really sitting at the epicenter of where this could go — physically, geopolitically, and geologically — with the government, its alliances with the United States, and the richness of the deposit itself.

When I came onto the board, the U.S. wasn’t even an investor — neither the government nor MP. Private companies were looking at strategic alliances in Brazil and globally in rare earths, but U.S. policy wasn’t there yet. 

I’ve always thought — having spent a lot of time in Brazil, including earning my PhD there — that Brazil needs to step up in the world. Rare earths need to be ringfenced and processed by the United States in a more meaningful way for the future of the country and really the hemisphere.

Gerardo Del Real: Specifically the heavy ones, right? I want to make that distinction for people.

Dr. Nomi Prins: Yes, the heavy rare earths.

Gerardo Del Real: There are two types — lights and heavies. And as you just described, the heavies are the ones critical for defense, versus the lights that tend to be more recreational in nature and not so much about national security.

Dr. Nomi Prins: There are aspects to some of the lights, but the heavies that are involved in defense can effectively function in basically any weather, in any environment, maintaining the magnetic properties necessary for the Navy, the Air Force, for anything we’re creating going forward. Those are what’s necessary, and MP has fewer of those. The United States underground has fewer of those than if you go south.

And the thing about the geopolitical war on rare earths is that it’s developing. With Brazil in the middle between the U.S. and China, as we talked about, China can basically just cut things off, as they’ve been doing throughout these tariff wars. It’s one of the reasons why, beneath the headlines, rare earths and critical minerals have been a cut-out with a lot of allied countries.

Because whatever’s happening at the top, what needs to happen is the supply and processing throughout the chain. Brazil is now sitting not just with these rare earths, but with two other things going for them that haven’t been developed.

So you asked where it can go. They have the cheapest ability to energize production facilities. They operate at a surplus of energy — hydropower. Brazil can effectively create cheaper production facilities simply because of the luck of geology, geography, and resources. Historically, Brazil has tended to be an exporter of raw materials, but they are now moving quickly with countries throughout the world, including Europe and the U.S., to change that.

In terms of large production facilities in Brazil that could, for example, be partnered with the United States — not just having the funding go into U.S. facilities, but also into facilities in Brazil — that could make processing cheaper and more competitive, keeping the economic efficiencies of rare earths down.

There are ways to work the energy part of the equation. As well as the rare earths themselves — aside from being heavies, they are closer to surface. That means you’re not doing the intensive fracking-type drilling you would need elsewhere. For example, Russia has Siberia — a ton of rare earths in the middle of nowhere — but it’s very expensive to access them. Even much of what China has access to is more in rock than in clay.

Nature — and this is the final thing about Brazil — has effectively pre-done some of the work. The calderas — a 70-million-year-old volcanic system — brought these rare earths into clay form near the surface, making them cheaper to extract at the source and more efficient up the supply chain.

I love uranium, and also copper and silver. But with heavy rare earths, there’s not just a tremendous investment opportunity — there’s also an opportunity to shift the actual makeup of nations in the world. That’s a very powerful narrative to me.

Gerardo Del Real: As it relates to Brazil — and I ask the question because I’m invested in several companies that I know have had high-level discussions with Chinese investors who seem hell-bent on maintaining, at the very least, their market share — how strategic is that Chinese presence?

How much of a dent… and maybe there’s a better way to ask this. This is, I think, the better way to ask: do you think the United States can be effective in dwindling some of the Chinese influence because of how proactive China has been in years past before it was urgent for the U.S. to be friendly?

Dr. Nomi Prins: That is such a good question. Can it? Yes. Will it? That’s where… going back to what we were saying about headlines and digging beneath them… when relationships with Brazil are more about political feelings than the physicality of rare earths and China’s position, that overshadows things.

Now, what I think is that within the more fabric-oriented, intelligence-oriented, defense-oriented individuals in Washington — the ones who hang around forever regardless of who’s in the administration — and also in Brazil, there’s an understanding that the two countries have to reach that sort of agreement.

Brazil’s not going to turn around and say no to China outright. And China has leapfrogged over the United States in becoming Brazil’s key trading partner — and this has really happened just in the last decade. Every time I’m there, there are delegations from China involved in different conversations in Brasilia. You’re driving around in BYDs and Teslas. There are just so many things embedded in the fabric between Brazil and China, and that’s not going to go away.

What the United States has to realize — with respect to rare earths, with respect to heavies, with respect to the difference between the two — is that while MP is important, it’s not the be-all and end-all. The U.S. needs to reestablish alliances in a much more meaningful way. They need to throw a lot of political weight and financial weight behind these alliances because Brazil is where the resources are. And the Brazilian government is aware of this.

But egotistical things get thrown back and forth, which I think are negative for both countries. I wrote my PhD on the triangle of Brazil, China, and the U.S. This isn’t new. As you said, when you go there you see the Chinese momentum — it’s huge and accelerating. They’re not backing off. At the same time, there are companies, sensibilities, and long-term strategic alliances between Brazil and the U.S. that need to be reinforced.

We’re not yet seeing the big checks and big headlines. That doesn’t mean they’re not being discussed. But it would be a badly missed opportunity for the United States not to step up the friendship — and for Brazil not to step up the friendship — through rare earths, through processing, and through the energy aspect. So yes, they absolutely can, but they need to step it up. These are conversations I’m having, with people I know, every single day.

Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, this isn’t hard.

Dr. Nomi Prins: This is in both countries. You absolutely don’t have a choice. You can mess about and think you do. But if you are serious — and you are — about the future of your countries and where the world is heading, you really need to step up the speed here. Again, these conversations happen every single day, multiple hours, across time zones, every day.

Gerardo Del Real: I believe it. Listen, it’s been a fascinating conversation, Nomi. I could speak with you for hours on end. I could talk data centers and AI, copper and uranium and lithium — and I’d love to do that with you. Maybe you can come back in the next couple of weeks and we can pick it up again.

In the meantime, Prinsights Global — please let people know where they can find you while you finish the book and continue all of your work. I know you’re out and about. You were at Rick Rule’s Symposium as one of the featured speakers. But I think it’s valuable for people to know where they can find your opinions and insights on a weekly and monthly basis.

Dr. Nomi Prins: Sure, thank you. Prinsights Global is the umbrella for my Substack: prinsights.substack.com. We have multiple tiers of subscriptions there. The two main ones — Premium and Founders+ — really focus on investments across the commodity space and related companies, whether AI tech, infrastructure, or energy, all driven through the geopolitical, commodity, and geological lens.

Our Founders+ tends to focus more on smaller-cap and junior companies — many of which have doubled in the last few months. We look very specifically at variables like jurisdiction and timing when positioning new monthly recommendations.

Both tiers are monthly. If you’re in Founders+, you get both, with investment strategies, timing, momentum, tracking — all of it. Again, it’s at prinsights.substack.com. It’s been exciting to grow it during this period. I just started it about 14 months ago.

Gerardo Del Real: Your timing is excellent, Nomi. In the early stages of these types of bull markets, it’s really easy for all of us to get it right and see doubles and triples. As the cycle advances, I think it’s going to be critical — pun intended — to have people like Dr. Nomi Prins to help separate quality from the wannabes. Because a lot of wannabes show up in the mid- and late-parts of the cycle.

And even in a bull market, folks, you can lose money. So you want to know what you own, why you own it, and maximize these types of cycles because they don’t come around often.

Nomi, it was an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. I’m really looking forward to chatting with you again. Thanks for your time.

Dr. Nomi Prins: Yes, same here. Thank you so much, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, cheers.