The US-Armenia deal turned out to be broader: data control, processing, and still transit

The agreement between the USA and Armenia on critical minerals and rare earth metals turned out to be much broader than the usual mining agreement. Washington sees Armenia not so much as a source of gigantic reserves of rare earth metals, but as part of a new strategic supply chain — from geological exploration and processing to transit of resources from Central Asia.

Formally, the document is devoted to cooperation in the field of critical minerals and rare earth elements. However, the text mentions supply chains, processing, infrastructure, logistics, financing and national security mechanisms much more often than mining itself. Geologists here go right after logisticians, and, perhaps, sometimes before them. The miners are only the third.

The agreement focuses not so much on the search for new deposits as on the processing and control of supply chains.

The document refers to the development of capacities for separation, purification and deep processing of metals. This reflects the current US strategy aimed at reducing dependence on China primarily in the processing of critical materials, and not just in their extraction.

Armenia itself is not considered a major rare earth power. It is known primarily for copper-molybdenum deposits and associated rare elements. We can talk about scandium, tellurium, rhenium, germanium, selenium, as well as individual rare earth elements like neodymium, cerium and lanthanum. However, the probability of discovering deposits on the scale of China or Australia in Armenia looks limited. The bowels of the country were actively studied back in the Soviet period, so the main interest of the United States may be related not so much to the search for a "new Mongolian sensation" as to the extraction and processing of already known associated rare elements from existing copper-molybdenum projects.

That is why the agreement pays so much attention to geological mapping and data control. The United States and Armenia intend to jointly map mineral resources, modernize the geological data system, strengthen the national Geological Survey and train specialists in modern exploration methods. At the same time, the document explicitly states that the exchange of geological data will be regulated by separate protocols, taking into account national security issues. The geological map, apparently, is now also becoming almost a strategic document — somewhere between a gas pipeline and a satellite image.

In fact, we are talking about creating a system in which American structures get access not only to possible future deposits, but also to geological information, financing, processing and export chains. Moreover, the agreement looks quite far from the classical free market. The text provides for state guarantees, lending and insurance of projects, priority access for American investors, as well as the ability to control transactions with assets for reasons of national security. In fact, we are talking about a model of politically managed supply chains, where not only price becomes a key factor, but also control over resources, logistics and processing.

At the same time, Armenia is important for the United States not so much for its mineral resources as for its transit location. The document explicitly states that the parties "recognize the importance" of the TRIPP route for the transit of critical minerals from the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

This once again proves that Armenia is considered as part of a larger Eurasian corridor connecting Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Turkey and Europe.

Thus, the agreement between Armenia and the United States is an attempt to build a long—term geo-economic system in favor of the United States. Previously, the struggle of the great powers was for oil and gas. Now, it seems, geologists, processors and operators of logistics corridors have officially joined it.

As EADaily reported, the deal between the USA and Armenia on rare earth metals caused a lot of noise. However, judging by open sources, we are not talking about the "giant" reserves of Armenia, which were suddenly noticed in Washington. The United States is seeking to create a corridor through which it will receive resources from the richer countries of Central Asia. In this chain, Armenia is assigned the role of a transit country, while its own risks of losing allies and markets that already exist are absolutely not taken into account.