Burgum Endorses Colosseum Rare Earths Project in Continued Critical Minerals Push

The Trump administration is fast tracking development of Dateline Resources’ (ASX:DTR,OTC Pink:DTREF) Colosseum rare earths project in California as part of its push to boost domestic critical minerals supply.

In a recent interview, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum highlighted the project as a priority under the government's critical minerals strategy, stating that the US has "to get back in the game in a serious way around critical minerals.”

For his part, US President Donald Trump has called the project "America’s second rare earths mine.” He first announced Colosseum's approval in an April 21 Truth Social post, listing it as a weekly achievement.

The Colosseum project sits in the Walker Lane Trend in East San Bernardino County, California, only 10 kilometers north of MP Materials’ (NYSE:MP) Mountain Pass mine, the only operating rare earths mine in the US.

Mountain Pass is also the highest-grade rare earths mine in the world.

According to Burgum, the endorsement from the government stems from the US’ push to restart domestic rare earths production and reduce dependence on other countries such as China.

Currently, China remains the biggest rare earths producer by far, producing 270,000 metric tons in 2024. That’s about 70 percent of the total production for the year, which was recorded at 390,000 metric tons.

The ongoing trade war has created tensions between the US and China, raising questions about supply chain security.

Some relief was seen last week — the BBC reported that China has agreed to supply US companies with magnets and rare earths as part of Trump’s deal with Xi Jinping, president of China. In return, the US said it will walk back its threats to revoke the visas of Chinese nationals at US colleges and universities.

Trump addressed the arrangement via a June 11 Truth Social update, stating that he has “always been good” with including Chinese students in colleges and universities.

Dateline has a green light to explore and extract rare earths from Colosseum, as well as gold.

“We have seen growing interest out of the US, particularly after recent milestones at Colosseum,” the Sydney Morning Herald quotes Dateline Managing Director Stephen Baghdadi as saying.

Dateline said in May that it had started the process to uplist to the OTCQB. Should the OTCQB listing go through, the company will still continue to meet its ASX disclosure requirements.

The same month, the company said it had begun preparations for a rare earths-focused drill program at Colosseum, and would complete it alongside a planned gold feasibility study for the site.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Gabrielle de la Cruz, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.