Trump II announced Project Vault, a massive $12 billion public-private partnership around critical minerals. The Export-Import Bank will provide $10 billion in capital while private companies will add $2 billion.
Vice President J.D. Vance, former TechGod, weighed in (via NYPost):
The strategy proposes a preferential trade zone among allied nations, designed to stabilize prices, block the flood of foreign products and guarantee secure access to essential materials.
Vance pitched the Project Vault effort as both an economic and national security mission — and urged allies to join quickly.
The objective is “diversifying global supply in the critical minerals market, while strengthening the partner countries who help all of us in this shared effort,” he said.
John Jovanovic, Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, is familiar with levered finance as a former private equity underwriter (PEU) with Cadent Energy Partners and Berenson.
The bank's news announcement states:
...a Direct Loan of up to $10 billion to Project Vault providing long-term financing to a partnership between original equipment manufacturers and private sector capital providers.
Initial indications of participation from original equipment manufacturers include Clarios, GE Vernova, Western Digital, Boeing, and many more.
Suppliers servicing Project Vault include Hartree Partners, Mercuria Americas, and Traxys.Jovanovic worked for Mercuria from 2016 to 2020 when he received his first Trump I political appointment. Jovanovic is married to the daughter of Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump II's Medicare Chief.
Just last week Jovanovic spoke before a Baker Hughes annual conference. He said the bank would determine "which energy projects move forward" and "which partnerships strengthen U.S. interests."
The bank's programs would "ensure American molecules and technologies reach every corner of the world." I thought Project Vault's giant subsidies were intended to compete with certain corners of the world in order to supply our domestic needs?
InvestingNews reported:
Helen Amos, a commodities analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said the administration is deploying multiple tools at once.
“They’re investing directly in equity, they’re building up stockpiles and looking at strategic partnerships with trading companies,” Amos told Bloomberg.
“They’re coming at it from all possible angles.”Another take from the same story is below:
Jefferies analyst Charles Boakye put it, Project Vault is “a first big step of many” needed over the next several years.
“This is not a nationalization of US minerals,” Boakye told Fortune. “It’s state capitalism and it’s industrial policy.”Like most Trump II initiatives there's a big announcement with many details to be worked out later. Trump is quick to throw billions at key industries for the benefit of TechGods.
“Those are the people that get the special favors. They get the government contracts, they get the pardons, or somebody they love or one of their friends gets a pardon.”-Marjorie Taylor Greene
