Interview with Sam Ehrlich (NDU) on Critical Minerals. Colombian Elections, North Korean Economic Boom, and Disclosure Day Artwork

Kellogg's Global Politics

Husband and wife team, Dr. Anita and Ryan Kellogg, take on the latest international news and events with their lively discussions and occasional debates on these issues. Having grown up in red states in conservative families, the Kelloggs bring their unique perspective living in multiple countries overseas and subject expertise in their chosen fields. Join us for a conversation that began in South Korea and continues through the present day.

All Episodes

Kellogg's Global Politics

Interview with Sam Ehrlich (NDU) on Critical Minerals. Colombian Elections, North Korean Economic Boom, and Disclosure Day

June 12, 2026 • Anita Kellogg

0:00 | 1:47:36

In this episode, we feature an interview with Sam Erhlich, a manager at McKinsey and Company and a student in my Strategic Materials Industry Study. We discuss why critical minerals are crucial to national security and how best to strengthen the U.S. industry

First, however, we look at the runoff elections in Colombia and what a far-right win would mean for the country and the region.

We next turn to North Korea’s surprising economic trajectory since the pandemic and the latest on its diplomatic efforts.

Ryan updates us on one of his favorite topics— aliens and what—if anything—was actually revealed on “Disclosure Day.”

Topics Discussed in this Episode

03:15 - Colombia Elections
18:45 - North Korean Economic Resurgence
48:25 - Disclosure Day Bust
1:03:36 - Interview with Sam Ehrlich on Critical Minerals

Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode

Topic 1: Colombian Elections

Topic 2: North Korean Economic Resurgence

Topic 3: Disclosure Day Bust

Send us Fan Mail

Follow Us

Show Website: www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com
Show Twitter: @GlobalKellogg
Anita’s Twitter: @arkellogg
Show YouTube

Anita Kellogg: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics. I'm Anita, and I'm here with my co-host, Ryan.

Ryan Kellogg: Thanks, and glad to be here.

Anita Kellogg: In today's episode, we feature an interview with Sam Ehrlich, a manager at McKinsey and a student in my strategic materials industry study. We discuss why critical minerals are crucial to national security and how best to strengthen the US industry.

First, however, we look at the runoff elections in Colombia and what a far-right win would mean for the country and the region. We next turn to North Korea's surprising economic trajectory since the pandemic and the latest on its diplomatic efforts. Then Ryan updates us on one of his favorite topics, aliens, and what, if anything, was actually revealed on Disclosure Day.

I just love that we get to have alien figures on the

Ryan Kellogg: show. Yeah, how dare you? You kind of dismissive in that.

Anita Kellogg: I can't imagine why

Ryan Kellogg: Well, people are just gonna have to wait to see later- Yeah ... in the [00:01:00] episode, but so you're, um... I mean, you've reached the end of yet another academic year at National Defense University.

Anita Kellogg: I

Ryan Kellogg: have. How's that, how's that feel?

Anita Kellogg: It feels good. I feel like I was so stressed this year about teaching the strategic materials industry study and not having enough time to prepare, and just the enormity of doing that class, but I feel like it ended really well.

We had one student got the best individual paper for the industry studies, and my students won a lot of other writing and awards in general, and, uh, yeah, it feel, it felt good. It- the end felt good. I was really happy with the product, and I'm excited about this interview with Sam. I think it gets to shed light, you know, a more comprehensive light on, on the industry because as I mentioned before, it's such a unique opportunity to see all sides, which not everybody gets that perspective who is involved in the industry.

So [00:02:00] seeing it from the industry viewpoint from all stages across, so from mining and exploration to processing to the final products like batteries, to, uh, you know, with industry, with academics, with government officials on policy. So I think, I think it's gonna be a pretty good interview, and people will learn a lot.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely, um, definitely looking forward to that. What else is... So what's on tap for, for the summer in terms of what you're looking to get

Anita Kellogg: done? I only have three papers to write in five weeks.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. That seems doable.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Our summer's so short. We're back on July 23rd. I mean, we're still in our office every day because of Trump, but the f- the school year officially starts again on the July 23rd, so it's insane, so we get almost no summer.

All right. So sure- I'm sure three papers in five weeks is a realistic expectation.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. No, I think anything's [00:03:00] doable.

Anita Kellogg: And I really need to actually accomplish that, so I don't

Ryan Kellogg: know. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: Busy summer.

Ryan Kellogg: Yep.

Anita Kellogg: All right. So we can start off with the Colombia elections, which are headed to a runoff between the leftist Iván Cepeda and the far-right candidate, Alfredo Delas Frias, with Mr.

Delas Frias widely expected to win. So this would continue if he does win, this would continue Latin America's shift to the far right following elections in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Honduras. Only Brazil and Mexico have remain having a leftist president Much of de la Espriella's popularity comes from the deteriorating security situation in the country.

So we're now seeing the highest levels of violence since the 2016 FARC peace accord, which dismantled FARC, but left smaller groups like ELN intact. So critics of the current president, Gustavo Petro, argue that his policy [00:04:00] of total peace, which prohibits military actions toward guerrilla groups while negoti- while negotiations are underway, has allowed criminal groups to reconstitute and grow.

Zapate is widely considered the architect of this policy. In contrast, de la Espriella has vowed to carry out an iron fist strategy, inspired above all by El Salvador's popular strongman, Bukele, who has imprisoned at least two percent of his country's adult population as part of a controversial crackdown on gangs.

And to a lesser extent, the election is also about the economy, which has grown only four percent in the last two years. Interestingly, to help boost Zapate's chances, Petro has recently increased the minimum wage by twenty-three percent. Petro had also made some gains in reducing the extreme inequality in Colombia.

But market economists worry about Zapate's policies to continue leftist reforms of Petro, and shares went up sharply with de la Espriella getting the largest [00:05:00] percentage of votes. Finally, if de la Espriella wins, many believe this will heal the rift between the United States and Colombia, which has sharply deteriorated since Trump took office.

Largely, this is about security cooperation, but de la Espriella is also very Trumpian, telling a radio host that he was winning over female voters because of the size of his genitals. Overall, analysts expect a de la Espriella win would see an extreme crackdown of criminal groups and more make-- and more market-based economic policies.

So interesting times. Uh, again, I didn't talk too much about it, but this idea of a far-right shift in Latin America, which to my observations tends to just keep shifting between extremes. You'll have, you know, waves, leftist waves, and then you have right waves, and they do kind of seem to follow the same path.

But nobody so- can solve the-- nobody has [00:06:00] solved the economic problems, let alone security problems in countries like Colombia, and that's why they just keep trying a new government and a new ida- and a new ideology.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah, and I definitely agree it's that whole hot potato theory of whoever's holding the bag on, you know, largely economic frustrations that are outside the control of any single party or single state leader.

And it's just, uh, yeah, frustration with the population with this. I mean, obviously, you know, 4% growth over two years is pretty pathetic for a developing country. S- and, you know, similar to what you're seeing in the West, I mean, everybody's cost of living since COVID has increased significantly, so people just are frustrated that they don't feel like, you know, things are getting better in their lives and they're just facilitating [00:07:00] between, uh, between the two extremes, like you said.

I mean, I think the other interesting thing from this, and this is very similar to what you see in Western multi-party democracies- Mm-hmm ... maybe outside the US, is the destruction of Uribe and kind of these more-- 'Cause Uribe dominated Colombian politics- Mm-hmm ... for, you know, almost two decades.

Anita Kellogg: The right party.

Ryan Kellogg: The right. The conservative right. And his standard bearer, you know, within these elections got single digits, you know, within the polling. So a lot of people are seeing this as, like, the final death knell of Uribe and kind of these more centrist mainstream party- Mm-hmm ... uh, movements, which is very similar to what you're seeing, like, in the UK, for instance, with the hollowing out of the Labour and, uh, Conservatives favoring more traditional or more extreme parties.

Anita Kellogg: I would say Uribe is centrist only compared to having somebody- Y- ... [00:08:00] that's far right like Petro,

Ryan Kellogg: yeah. Y- yeah, but he did grow out of kind of like an establishment party.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah.

Ryan Kellogg: But- But yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, Colombia was different- I would say, yeah ... compared to the rest Still, still right.

Anita Kellogg: Yes. But

Ryan Kellogg: But not populist right.

Anita Kellogg: Right.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: And, uh, de Espriella marks himself as an outsider. He's a lawyer who hasn't hold any political office, hasn't held any political office. So kind of in, in that vein of populist leaders that we're seeing in so much of the world.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. Basically, I mean, he's an outsider both businessman and lawyer.

Sounds like he spent most of his time in Miami- Mm-hmm ... defending criminals. But yeah, he's basically adopted kind of that, I think specifically adopting the Bukele look-

Sam Enrlich: Yeah ...

Ryan Kellogg: in terms of, like, the ball cap. Mm-hmm. Uh, he recently, in the lead-up, I think, to the election, donned the Colombian [00:09:00] football jersey, even though the guy's not a fan of soccer/football at all.

But this is something that, um, Bolsonaro did, like in Brazil. It's just like a way to kind of position yourself on that populist front. Trump, I think, would do it, but he's never been seen outside a suit/like the polos he wears, like, to, to play golf. Yeah. But otherwise, he would totally wear-

Anita Kellogg: Yeah ...

Ryan Kellogg: a Knicks jersey or something if he could.

Yeah,

Anita Kellogg: absolutely. But I think, like, there's just so much prohibition, uh, for American presidents. Like, apparently Obama got attacked for wearing a tan suit at some point too.

Ryan Kellogg: Oh, yeah. He never lived that down. He never lived down wearing the tan suit. But yeah.

Anita Kellogg: It's crazy. Absolutely crazy. Uh, yeah, and just how Trumpian he is, just even the way he talks.

But I think Colombia more than maybe like Argentina and Chile is more about the security [00:10:00] situation than the economy. That's the impression I get.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah, definitely it, it seems to be that way. I, I mean, my understanding too is Petro was very boxed in by a relatively balanced, maybe compared to other Latin American countries, in terms of the balance between judiciary, legislature, and executive power.

So he didn't really get to implement what people were really afraid of, you know, his nigh Marxist- Right ... uh, state ownership sort of ideas, but was very much constrained to the point where, yeah, raising the minimum wage 23% was seen as like, oh, he's trying to throw the election. But that's, that's a standard kind of left of center approach compared to, you know, what you saw deployed by Chavez, you know, for instance- Right

in Venezuela. So it's, yeah, I think, yeah, the security situation for sure. I, I was surprised, I guess not that [00:11:00] surprised, that Colombia had reached like new records for cocaine production. So that combined with, you know, increasing levels of violence, which I haven't seen if it's like back up to pre 2016, uh, days in terms of crime levels, but I mean, it could be just any sort of increase is seen as intolerable particularly to who, um, uh, De La Espriella's base is, which is kind of located in that, the Andes region, the suburbs of the main city.

So these are mostly middle class people that have done well, you know, over the last generation and are, are looking to protect kind of those, those gains. So the focus is on, on security.

Anita Kellogg: It's so funny to me when middle class people who have done well are the ones who support the populous

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, but when it's a security focus- Yeah

that, that makes sense- Yeah ... 'cause you're trying to secure. But it's the, it's the, it's more the rural [00:12:00] region. Yeah, it's kind of the opposite here in terms of, like, where the split... But yeah, the left region is, um, for, uh, for, for Petro's... And of course, yeah, I think one thing I'm not sure you explained, which I had forgotten, that they basically, uh, Colombian presidents can only hold one term-

Sam Enrlich: Mm-hmm

Ryan Kellogg: constitutionally. So Cepeda is, uh, is obviously part of, of Petro's party, but most of that support comes from the rural regions, which have, uh, been hurt a lot because of the, the lack of land reform. Mm-hmm. Um, and that's, that's really been struggling. Uh, so they were looking for, you know, more economic relief.

Uh, and then the same within the, the inner cities. So the poorer regions within the inner cities is also, like, a base of support-

Anita Kellogg: Yeah ...

Ryan Kellogg: um, for them.

Anita Kellogg: So one, one thing that's really notable about Colombia is it has the greatest inequality out of most Latin American countries.

Ryan Kellogg: Which is saying [00:13:00] something- Saying a lot

'cause it's a place known for-

Anita Kellogg: Inequality, right? ... known for inequality, yeah. So it's a huge problem in, in Colombia, and definitely part of, uh, the s- the more leftist support, despite, I think, the security situation, which probably most people are unhappy with.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like from the poly market, though, De la Espriella is by far the, uh, the most favored candidate.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. He's definitely the favorite. '

Ryan Kellogg: Cause as of today, he's at 84% chance of, of winning on June 21st when the election's held.

Anita Kellogg: And one of the logic behind that is, one, he, he won the m- the not the majority, but he won the most perc- highest percentage of votes- Mm-hmm ... at 43% to, uh, Iván Cepeda's 40%.

Ryan Kellogg: Right.

Anita Kellogg: But I think the logic, too, is that, you know even though Urabe's favored candidate only got, like, 6% of the [00:14:00] vote, it's thought that most of those votes will go to de Espriella.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah, which makes, makes sense just from a political ideology alignment. So what do you, what do you think this means for Colombia? I mean, it seems like there's some positives, at least in the short term, and in terms of the relationship between the US is likely to improve significantly.

Anita Kellogg: Right, which hinges a lot on security cooperation as well.

Ryan Kellogg: Mm-hmm.

Anita Kellogg: I think my fear... Definitely, I think they need to go back, like total peace does not seem to be working, and they need a more, They need a more focused security policy. But I fear that Diaz-Perilla's... So I think it may go too far, like El Salvador, which has jailed more than 2% of its [00:15:00] citizens, right? And I think that could be its own problem if, if it's overcompensating. But I think certainly US cooperation with Colombia before has been effective, but it also led to a lot of human rights abuses, and so finding that balance will be difficult, and I'm, I'm not sure someone to the far right like Diaz-Perilla Diaz-Perilla will be able to do that.

Ryan Kellogg: Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's a little unclear and then having kinda what level of institutional support he'll have and kind of that composition, 'cause that's maybe something I didn't really look at, 'cause he's, Espinal is obviously not part of a party per se- Right. He's really independent ... or he's a new party.

So who are his like allies within the legislature? Um- That would be

Anita Kellogg: a big factor. Yeah. So that was something that one of the articles I read noted is that he will also be [00:16:00] somewhat constrained-

Ryan Kellogg: Right ...

Anita Kellogg: by the legislature. But how much? I don't know. But like I said, I just fear about him going too far on the security situation.

But I see why certainly people are very frustrated with the current plan, and as I mentioned, the, uh, the leftist contender, uh, Ivan Cepeda, was considered sort of the architect of that total peace plan. And while- Right. Yeah ... while he hasn't said that he will continue it, it's widely thought that he would.

Ryan Kellogg: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And

Anita Kellogg: I think it's a very complicated security situation. We want to make it just all about drugs, but it's really a lot more nuanced than that, I believe. I mean, at one point these guerrilla groups were themselves leftist, but they certainly have become more just criminal organizations So I don't know.

It's complicated.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I think, uh, I mean, thinking about it, I think he, he will have a lot less [00:17:00] leeway, and that, I think that's always been kind of the moderating strength of it. Not, uh, where strength of the Colombian system, although it, um, certainly discourages you know, greater equality.

It does have this sort of moderating influence of, well, what's ever good for the business elites- Yeah ... within the country is generally what will be supported. So taking too, too much of extreme, you know, around like heavy jailing. I mean, mind you, it'll probably be set up like Bukele, where it's private prisons, so there will be- He did-

profit-making opportunities, but

Anita Kellogg: will that- Mentioned that he would set up 10 maximum security prisons.

Ryan Kellogg: Right. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, in the, in the jungles. So that could be a certain subset of the base where that where the business elite, where that's appealing, but maybe other subset that's, uh, that's seen as, uh, [00:18:00] as detrimental.

Anita Kellogg: mean, just human rights in general, like could suffer a lot under Diaz-Brea.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. I don't know without the kind of the ideological tinge that like a Uribe had. I kinda wonder, yeah, if he'll be as extreme as that with like the extrajudicial killings is what I'm thinking, or will it be more kind of focused on we're gonna just lock up 2% of the, the population.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, but you had like severe attacks on journalists, you know, who were killed. I mean, you had a lot of-

Ryan Kellogg: With Uribe.

Anita Kellogg: Yes.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: So you could see that situation again.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: So-

Ryan Kellogg: It's possible.

Anita Kellogg: I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what happens, and as always, we just wish the best for Colombia. So you had a surprising take on North Korea that I wasn't completely aware of

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, not so much, uh, my own personal take, but came across this came across this art- I haven't, you know, I haven't followed, uh, North Korea just because there's been so much going on, and especially on the, the, the US side [00:19:00] between our little adventures in Iran and Venezuela.

But yeah, so Wall Street Journal reporters, uh, Daesi Yoon and Timothy Martin reported yesterday on the surprising success, and I put that kind of in air quotes, of the North Korean economy since the pandemic. And what they highlighted it but makes sense, you know, given what's happened over the last couple of years, is that North Korea, at least its elite within Pyongyang, are experiencing a mini economic boom, and this has been driven by both the arms sales and the troop reinforcements for Russia's war in Ukraine and interestingly, cyber currency theft- Oh

which is a pretty significant source of revenue for the North Korean state. But just putting some numbers to it so the arms sales have been significant, and again, these are mostly artillery shells and munitions that have been provided by North Korea to [00:20:00] Russia. So that's about $10 billion since the middle of 2023 to the end of 2025, and then another 500 million, 'cause I think we, we talked about how North Korea sent 15,000 troops to fight, you know, particularly I think in last year's summer offensive- Mm-hmm

when Russia was unsuccessfully, you know, making a push on- Right ... the eastern front. But North Korea apparently contractually got $500 million for that. They most likely received that payment in the form of military technology and weapon parts and that's why the new North Korean warships and drones, uh, have been seen to resemble like Russian designs.

Mm-hmm. And they're actually currently working, I wasn't aware of this, they're working on the country's first nuclear-powered submarine, which is expected to, uh, to be commissioned relatively soon. And then the other component was this [00:21:00] idea of, uh, of cyber theft, which really kind of throws in... 'cause like the crypto bros, the whole thing was like, "This is so secure, it can't be hacked.

You know, your money- Really? ... is safe with it." Oh yeah, that was the whole... This is like, oh, this is outside of government control and systems and banks. Well, why would that be the case? So it can never be seized by the government

Anita Kellogg: Right, but why would it not be vulnerable to cyber attacks? '

Ryan Kellogg: Cause it's supposedly, it's the block- this is how it was framed to me, is that the blockchain, it's like this super, like st- you know, 300 times harder than whatever the code the Germans used to, to, to encrypt messages.

So it was supposedly un- un-unhackable. And yet, you know, this army of cyber thieves in North Korea have literally drained off billions. So people investing in cryptocurrency, just don't be surprised. You know, it gets... But it m- also makes me think, why aren't we doing this? Are we also hacking? Like, if everybody's dealing with cryptocurrency, why don't we [00:22:00] drain the bank accounts of Iran and North Korea if this is so easy that...

'Cause let's be honest, are the- these gonna be more sophisticated- That the- ... than the West- The reason why- ... and all of its powerful AI? The

Anita Kellogg: reason why we don't do it is 'cause it's illegal, and so we don't allow the government to engage- When does, when, when does- ... in

Ryan Kellogg: illegal activities. Okay.

Anita Kellogg: You know?

Ryan Kellogg: Is that, is that currently an issue with the current administration?

'Cause... But they are, they are eng- they're engaged in illegal activ- This is not you're, you're hacking a criminal's cryptocurrency bank account.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, you still, that's still illegal.

Ryan Kellogg: That, but you're stealing back the money that they stole.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, but being Robin Hood or whatever is not legal.

Ryan Kellogg: I think, I mean, yeah.

It should be legal. Anyway, I think there's an opportunity- It's used to- I think there's a revenue generating opportunity if it's so easy to hack to hack these crypto exchanges.

Anita Kellogg: Two more points about that. Uh, a couple years ago, I had a student who was National Guard, and his main job was in cybersecurity [00:23:00] for banks.

Ryan Kellogg: Okay.

Anita Kellogg: And one of his frustrations was the US has a policy to, to defend against cyber attacks, but-

Ryan Kellogg: Right ...

Anita Kellogg: they're not allowed to cause banks and stuff are not allowed to have any sort of assertive position in, in preventing cyber attacks. So there's that. And two, what you talk about is just illegal. It just, it just is.

Ryan Kellogg: If it's going after illegal operation. I'm not s- so sure on the legality of-

Anita Kellogg: You can't, you can't do illegal actions-

Ryan Kellogg: The only thing I, the only thing, so I would- ... against

Anita Kellogg: illegal people.

Ryan Kellogg: The, yeah. I, I mean, I, I'm not sure on your, your claim on the legality. But I will say the thing that it would do is if you're pushing crypto exchanges and pushing it into like this is a legitimate investment source, you don't wanna undermine the security of it by engaging in, engaging in the activity that supposedly makes it a safe asset [00:24:00] as well, that the government at any time can take your, take your cryptocurrency.

Anita Kellogg: I don't get why you think it's not illegal.

Ryan Kellogg: Because you're, it's essentially going after what would be deemed a terrorist or, um- I mean- ... criminal organization ...

Anita Kellogg: it's illegal-

Ryan Kellogg: So you can seize the assets of criminal organizations, which we've, we've shown- But- ... you can designate a state actor as a criminal organization, as we saw in Venezuela with Maduro, so.

Anita Kellogg: Certainly, but there's two points to that. I mean, it's never been found legal that you could use the money, you could sell the Russian assets that you seized and use the money.

Ryan Kellogg: Well, I mean, they're exploring that.

Anita Kellogg: But right now

Ryan Kellogg: it's still- That's been, that's being widely explored, uh, at the EU as well, I mean.

Anita Kellogg: Right, but we talked about before, one of the reluctance to do that is Belgium being afraid that Russia would be able to sue under international law.

Ryan Kellogg: Also, I think there's a big difference between seizing criminal [00:25:00] crypto wallets versus seizing assets from oil and gas sales from a major world power.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, but I just don't, I don't see the legality.

I don't s-

Ryan Kellogg: Okay I still think you can.

Anita Kellogg: You can't just shoot somebody just because they're a criminal. I mean, legally you can't.

Ryan Kellogg: Well, if they're a terrorist.

Anita Kellogg: Like, it's complicated.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Okay. Anyway, um, yeah, so this is a major source, and all of this together has a big impact just because North Korea's economy's only 27 billion. And, and just so... I mean, I looked it up just to provide a framing, like how much 27 billion, 'cause sometimes it's like, "Oh, that's...

This seems like..." Well, it doesn't seem like a lot, but it, um... So over 160 companies on the S&P 500 generate more revenue [00:26:00] annually than North Korea. So these are private companies or public companies on the stock exchange that are larger than the economy of North Korea. And then the, the, I mean, the other thing this article pointed out was that the growth is around 3.7% which would be impressive for a developed country, but it's still pretty anemic.

So the areas of gains kinda economically are showing up, and they provide a, you know, a bunch of different you know, evidence of that. I think the most compelling was the, uh... And they always show this, like, on satellite imagery of, like, the night- Mm ... the lights, and the difference between, like, South Korea and Seoul right to the south, and then how dark- Mm

um, North Korea looks. Well, that, that darkness has lessened considerably in the last five years and it's, like, five times brighter than it was. So it shows, you know, a significant amount of economic activity, at least in these sort of bigger... I think Pyongyang and maybe [00:27:00] some of the other bigger cities within the country.

So something's going on there.

Anita Kellogg: I think it's so notable because, you know, before, like, it, in around 2020, I mean, they were having severe food shortages. This is a country that has experienced several famines- Mm-hmm ... in, in recent years due to economic sanctions largely. So what is considered anemic growth in general is hugely sig- significant in a country like North Korea.

I mean, remember, it's, it's disconnected from the international trading system completely.

Sam Enrlich: Right.

Anita Kellogg: It's a completely isolated economy and country. So it's actually pretty remarkable, and certainly I didn't expect to see it. It, but it makes sense, as you said, because of its ties with Russia during the Ukraine war, being able to sell things to Russia.

I mean, any, almost any change in the [00:28:00] economy brings significant results because of how incredibly poor it is.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. No, for, for sure. And I think it's... I think the other interesting thing, this actually came out of, uh, New York Times reporting, I think right, right before or after the Wall Street Journal article.

And I was not aware that you know- During COVID that North Korea closed off- Mm-hmm ... the Chinese border and clamped down a lot on trade and smuggling, which was really the underpinning of the black markets that had emerged over the last 10 years or so particularly within Pyongyang. So these underground markets Kim Jong Un has really pushed to replace those with more state-sanctioned equivalents, and actually even forced those who profited, no doubt at gunpoint, to donate profits back to the state.

The other thing was, [00:29:00] and I think we had talked about before, was, you know, the part of the smuggling and trade was getting in cultural products- Right ... from South Korea, so K-pop and some of the, the Korean soap operas. And there was a very brutal crackdown that The New York Times reported on in, in around these cultural products.

I think they talked about one incident where a dissident had escaped and reported that a man was shot in the streets or executed in the street by North Korean government forces because he had distributed, like, 70 K-pop songs- Right ... or something equivalent to that.

Anita Kellogg: It should... I mean, people should just be aware, like, there's no...

Any individual enterprise is completely illegal, right? Right. So that's why clamping down on trade, because only the state should have the ability to trade, right? Individuals shouldn't. [00:30:00] And of course, in this situation, there's a lot of smuggling that goes on in, in these black markets. So s- a lot of analysts have argued over time that these sort of black markets kind of are a release valve for the economy at times.

Right. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Especially for the, for the very poor, and cracking down on those is also considered, like, a cause of massive famines and, and things like that that we've seen in, in North Korea.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that's been, I think you know, particularly over the years following COVID and when this crackdown occurred, that you had a lot of a lot of deaths, particularly in kind of the more, more rural areas.

But yeah, in terms of the other ways economically it's kind of shown up is so... And I think, I think a lot of this is the whole journey of like Westerners going to Pyongyang. [00:31:00] Mm-hmm. And, you know, for probably two decades, it's been kind of this set sort of standard. You know, you stay at the hotel.

Mm-hmm. You go to the, the one restaurant that's allowed, the whatever the unreliability of electricity. But it was always sort of these same stories that were told over and over. So then there was this gap where no foreigners went during the COVID period. So foreigners have been allowed back in. A lot of this is like the contrast.

I think the things that they've noted is like the, uh, the number of smartphones that are now present, and these are all domestically developed smartphones built with Chinese components, but they produce over half a million per year. There's 50 different brands. The other thing is the very significant number of, uh, cars that have increased.

Mm-hmm. And you see a lot of the late model Chinese EVs, uh, now on the street, so that was a big contrast to the point where they're having to establish more traffic rules, traffic and parking rules. Mm-hmm. Because enough of, [00:32:00] again, these economic elites within Pyongyang, uh, that people can afford cars. And then the completion of major construction projects that were specifically mandated by Kim Jong Un, but that, that had been delayed for a long time.

So they have a huge hospital that was built in Pyongyang. Uh, this was kind of interesting, a greenhouse complex that's larger than Central Park. Again, a state showpiece, but kind of interesting. And then a beach resort compound, which I saw a picture of and has a pretty cool water slide that showed Kim Jong.

I'd like to see Kim Jong Un fly down this.

Anita Kellogg: He likes

Ryan Kellogg: rides. He does like ri- I've learned. Yeah, yeah.

Anita Kellogg: A lot.

Ryan Kellogg: It looked like a cool water slide. So, so yeah, it just seems like there, it, s- at least for a small subset of North Korea, that these are kind of boom times, despite the fact that trade is significantly down and, uh, where illegal trade is significantly down on the Chinese [00:33:00] border.

Uh, but driven by these gains from, from Russian revenue that this was, uh, yeah, pretty, pretty big move. But yeah, the other component of this is more on the political side. I know you wanted to, to talk about that.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So, uh, we've seen an increase in diplomatic engagements, and it was really significant.

Xi Jinping arrived today, June 8th, for a two-day state visit, which is the first in seven years. And the thought is that China is putting more effort into the relationship because North Korea has grown increasingly close to Russia. So China hadn't been that interested in engaging with North Korea for some time and now seems more focused on it.

So the idea of the visit is that economic ties are thought to be the focus with no real discussion of denuclearization, something that China is probably not that concerned with [00:34:00] overall. It's more China's perspective has always been concerned about economic collapse of North Korea because it doesn't want them pouring into its borders, all these impoverished people pouring across its borders and potentially creating instability there.

So China's engagement in, in d-diplomacy for a very long time has been focused on, on the economy. So that's not really a surprise. What's kinda interesting is that China is also trying to have access to the Sea of Japan restore its cross-border infrastructure. I mean, China, we talk a lot about its activities in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan, but China is also very concerned that it could be blockaded, right, and is concerned with its own ability to shipping lanes- Mm-hmm

and such. Going back to nuclear [00:35:00] weapons, Russia has effectively accepted North Korea as a nuclear state despite backing UN Security Council resolutions to prevent this So it's pretty significant the develop of, of nuclear weapons in North Korea. It's now thought to possess 50 to 60 warheads. I remember studying it when it had like two to four, right?

Mm-hmm. And enough fissile material for another 30 warheads. In addition, the country now produces enough material for 10 to 20 annually. Goal appears to be to build up a sufficient arsenal combined with intercontinental missiles, the ability to actually deliver nuclear weapons, and nuclear submarines to be considered an officially recognized nuclear state in the push for sanction relief.

So it's really, really striking the difference in the way we've treated North Korea and Iran which Iran we talk about posing existential threat to Israel, but you could also say North- North [00:36:00] Korea poses an existential threat to South Korea as well. And how we allowed one country to become essentially a, a nuclear power and is doing everything to prevent the other, including this more massive conflict.

So I always think that it's an interesting contrast.

Ryan Kellogg: I mean, I think they I mean, it probably part of the, the reason that we're so vigilant on Iran is because of the failures in, in North Korea to, uh, to do it. But I think what, what North Korea always possessed was a legitimate conventional deterrence because Seoul is so close to the border that they were always in any sort of conflict, were always gonna be able to lay waste through conventional means to, to Seoul, where a third of the South Korean population is.

So it always created this, this, um, I don't know, reluctance or a level [00:37:00] of going to the level of aggression that we've done. 'Cause obviously I- y- we probably came the closest, what, in the '90s- Mm-hmm ... to potentially bombing North Korean- Yeah. We, we talked about it ... nuclear facilities. But I think because that conventional deterrence always existed on the border that, you know, it was just wasn't worth, wasn't worth that price.

Whereas opposed to Iran, rightfully, wrongly you know, we thought was, was worth the price of, of going after. I

Anita Kellogg: mean, I agree with that completely, right? It's just interesting the way we talk about not allowing, you know, our, our enemies or these rogue states- Mm-hmm ... Sponsors of terrorism, all those things.

And, and North Korea has been really influential in spreading its technology in how to- Mm ... build nuclear weapons, and it also, we didn't talk about it, but gets a lot of sales on the black market of selling its weapons. And we talked about this in an earlier interview I [00:38:00] did, and I encourage you to check it out.

We'll put that in the show notes. But that's also signi- significant source of North Korea's economy and a source of instability in global security.

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. Yep.

Anita Kellogg: The next thought is whether there would be a potentially, uh, another Trump-Kim meeting. And- They both talked about it, but I think, I think Trump does not wanna highlight the issue of denuclearization, right?

It's having enough troubles diplomatically, and such a thing is so unlikely to happen. Why would Trump meet Kim?

Ryan Kellogg: Y- y- yeah, I mean, I think he-- it would be more around, like, undermining or trying to find... I think it would be from a business perspective, like trying to kind of almost a de facto recognition.

Knowing that denuclearization isn't [00:39:00] possible what else could you gain from it and still-- while, you know, balancing kinda Russia and China, you know, within that state. Given that he, he supposedly has this very warm- I know ... uh, personal relationship with Kim Jong Un, so.

Anita Kellogg: I just think Trump doesn't have enough to gain from it.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, but I think the risks aren't that bad. I think, I think everything that I've read is that you would not bring up denuclearization- Right ... in the initial meeting. So this would be more- What's the point? What are you gonna say you accomplished? To show that you're a peacemaker, to show- What peace are you- As a distraction away from Iran.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I'm just-

Ryan Kellogg: I think that's, I think that would be the main things that you would, you would gain from it.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I think it's a no.

Ryan Kellogg: I think it's a, a generally zero risk or low risk from the US-Trump perspective, 'cause, you know, things are what they are. They are an established nuclear power that's soon gonna have 100 warheads and intercontinental [00:40:00] ballistic missiles.

Yeah. I mean, they're a legitimate nuclear power now.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Exactly. So I don't know. I'm skeptical that there could be this meeting between Trump and Kim, but everyone knows I've been wrong before.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, it is interesting, yeah, seeing kinda China attempt to pivot and, um...

But yeah, I think the fact that-- 'cause the denuclearization thing is not being given up formally by China, at least from how the US was viewing it and framing it. 'Cause in the meeting when Trump traveled to Beijing, in our kind of summary of the meeting, we said that we talked about, and China agreed around long-term denuclearization, which is something similar to Russia.

I mean, they're all signees because this- Right ... is a UN Security Council resolution that there should be steps towards denuclearization. But everything China's [00:41:00] done has just kinda de facto-

Anita Kellogg: Right ...

Ryan Kellogg: which is just a recognition of reality at this point.

Anita Kellogg: And I think they're just not that interested. They don't care if North Korea has nuclear weapons

Ryan Kellogg: I don't think it's great if it leads then to nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan from their perspectives.

Anita Kellogg: Well, I guess that's true.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: But I think there's still... I don't think they're terribly concerned about it. I mean, the US is putting a lot of pressure on South Korea and Japan to not develop nuclear weapons. It's, those are pretty highly unlikely scenarios. I mean, can you imagine Japan really developing nuclear weapons?

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Well, only because, I mean, under the current prime minister, yeah. But under, but, um, domestically, I think, yeah, there'd be too much pushback-

Anita Kellogg: Yeah ...

Ryan Kellogg: on Japan developing nuclear weapons. I just don't

Anita Kellogg: see

Ryan Kellogg: it. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: So I don't know how concerned China is with it without real-

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I don't know. I still think it's, it's significant.

And the fact that, yeah, now they're [00:42:00] choosing to, to go back given this, uh, very close relationship with- Yeah ... with Russia.

Anita Kellogg: But that's, I think largely... I mean, I think they do usually stick to economic discussions.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: And whether there can be some sort of official trade across the border.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Which I think has suffered because yeah, they've put on more self-reliant...

I mean, obviously they They can assemble the phones, but all these components are coming from China. But they did draw the line at, "Hey, we wanna assemble and-" I know, that's interesting. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there is a much... Which goes back to the whole Juche philoso- of self-reliance. So I feel like he's, he's kind of drawn back on that.

And, um, so at least from an elite's management perspective, I mean, think Kim Jong Un is being seen as, you know, very successful. Yeah. You know, a [00:43:00] lot more successful than- His father ...pr- his father. Some people even say more than the grandfather, which is, that seems like heresy but- Well, his grandfather was

Anita Kellogg: a real socialist.

He believed in-

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, he was a revolutionary.

Anita Kellogg: Right. I mean, I think he was not about empowering elites, giving them more money. I mean, I think he generally believed in a more equal socialist society, where I don't think Kim Jong Un does. He...

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, but in reality, I mean, there was all... It's all these Marxist societies normally settle on the whole Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.

So yeah, the cadre elite are still getting the best of everything- Right ... within a party. I'm just

Anita Kellogg: saying under his grandfather, though, he really was-

Ryan Kellogg: No, under the grandfather also. Right. Yeah, it was that same thing. But I think it's more distributed. Like, the elites is a bigger subset of people. Yeah. I mean, obviously, if you're seeing this amount of consumption, this electricity growth, uh, within North Korea, that, you know, maybe it's only, say, 10% of the population, but that 10%- Yeah

percent's living [00:44:00] much more similarly to how people in China-

Anita Kellogg: Right ...

Ryan Kellogg: uh, in the cities live. And that's, that's a big, that's a big change. Um, and but the other, the, the part I think we'll, we'll leave on is I thought it was kind of interesting. I had seen this before, but Kim Jong Un is, despite only being in his 40s, early 40s, is thinking about his successor.

So the common thought, and again, this is usually, like, no intelligence, um, but I'll, I'll give you the degree of intelligence. Like, for instance his daughter. So this is the, the, his child that has appeared most, like, within public media- Mm-hmm ... and on meetings. Extraordinarily limited information. In fact, the, her name, Kim Ju-ae, uh, is only known because US's absolute topmost diplomat and leading reemba- rebounder of the 1990s Chicago Bulls team, Dennis Rodman provided that information 'cause he visited Kim Jong Un, [00:45:00] who is famously a gigantic Michael Jordan and Chicago Bulls fan.

I, I mean, guy's got good taste in NBA teams- Oh my gosh ... I will say that. But he visited in 2013, and that was the only reason we know, like, his daughter's name. But since 2022, his daughter's appeared on public television every other day and has accompanied her father on a lot of high-profile meetings, including this this recent one on Beijing, uh, to commemorate the end of World War II there are just in general a lot of questions around whether Korea, North Korean society would accept a female head of state.

But that being said, I mean, Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong, uh, actually holds the country's second most powerful position. And for the first time, the foreign minister Cho Son-hyun is also a woman. So maybe that's building kind of the precedence, but there is kind of this, this thought [00:46:00] that cause he does supposedly have a son, so some people think that this is kind of a feint or, or a placeholder until the son reaches like a old enough age to kinda roll out in public.

But people right now are just, you know, th- she seems like the lead candidate for potential, uh, succession.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. There's been a lot of talk about this. I mean, you make a point about a patriarchal society accepting a woman, but I think you have a lot of examples that escape me at the moment of non-democratic countries having women leaders in patriarchal societies.

Mm. I think it's actually- Yeah ... harder in democracies, right? Like, the US has never had a woman president. France has never had a woman president. It's harder for them to get elected than rise up through the power structures where women are still not represented, but for some reason, uh, a woman leader is acceptable.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah, that being said, I feel like France and the [00:47:00] US really do kinda stand out now that Japan- True ... and Korea and Mexico- ... UK years a- I mean, UK's had two leaders. Mind you, I think what is, uh... Yeah, I would say in the West, and it, it would include Germany as well, it did, as d- as long as the woman's on the center right, I think it's a much easier path.

The left or the center left, much rarer, at least in Western countries, are kind of rising up the power,

Anita Kellogg: but- I mean, you've, you've seen that in France on the right, women running.

Ryan Kellogg: Running, yeah. Le Pen hasn't won. Well, actually, yeah, I mean, she's been ruled out, so I, I think France is still, still gonna lack a head of state female just like ourselves.

Which

Anita Kellogg: I, I agree. The US and France stands

Ryan Kellogg: out. Do stand out, yeah, yeah.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: In a

Ryan Kellogg: very- Even though we're the, we're the founders of kinda like mainstream liberal democratic governments, and yet the two oldest ones [00:48:00] haven't managed to elect a woman. I'm not, not sure what that says about both of us.

Anita Kellogg: Very sexist societies.

Ryan Kellogg: I guess so.

Anita Kellogg: Which can just also be seen in the repre-representation of women also in, in legislatures and-

Ryan Kellogg: Mm ...

Anita Kellogg: parliament.

Ryan Kellogg: Is that low too for, for France- I believe so ... compared to... Yeah. Interesting.

Anita Kellogg: Well, you were excited about what was called Disclosure Day

Ryan Kellogg: All right. I don't know about excited 'cause I had, I've been, I'll be honest, I've taken my, my, uh, eye off the ball, you know, since the heydays when we reported this last in episode 37 which, you know, take- Was it that long ago?

It was a while ago. It was 2023, which is now, now apparently that's three years ago, which I don't understand time anymore. But yeah, it was three years ago when you had kind of these big [00:49:00] disclosures before Congress and testimonies from mostly ex-military, and I think most pivotally from ex-intelligence officer David Grosh, who made very extraordinary claims, including most prominently that the US government has possession of both alien technology, which it was working to reverse engineer, and also alien biologics, so alien extraterrestrial bodies as well.

So this is in the halls of Congress, and it was a very exciting time. Uh, and representatives like Nancy Mace and to a much lesser extent, AOC, were taking it very seriously. So basically, I haven't, I haven't, haven't been 100%, but the coverage around the Disclosure Day, which is a series of two different releases that the Department of War have done last [00:50:00] month.

So they, uh, and this was highly anticipated, and this was all done based on President Trump's passage of Oh, passage of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, also known as PURSUE that Trump signed earlier this year. So these tranches involved the release of 162 declassified documents which spanned from the 1940s to the 2020s.

And the president I think this pretty, pretty amusing little, uh, Truth Social, so I'll read it out loud, when it was released. So, "As my promise for you..." I, I won't do a Trump impersonation. "As my promise for you-" Thank you. People would probably wanna see it, but, "As my promise for you, the Department of War has released the first tranche of the UFO/UAP files to the public for their review and study.

In an effort for complete and maximum transparency, [00:51:00] it was my honor to direct my administration to identify and provide government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomenon, and unidentified flying objects. Whereas previous administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new documents and videos, the people can decide for themselves what the hell is going on," all caps.

"Have fun and enjoy! President Donald J. Trump." So I will say that came across as like Here you go, little piggies. Have fun with the slop I'm going to, uh-"

So, so that being said the release involved, it was interagency release, you know, from the, the DOD, the Department of Energy, NASA, FBI, the White House, and the intelligence agencies. So in terms of like how it's been [00:52:00] seen by the UFO community, it's been a mixed bag. It goes everywhere from like a complete nothing burger to an important like first step in full disclosure after decades of like complete denial.

So what did these files contain? You know, it was made up of different incidence reports from the Navy and Air Force pilots that were describing different flight characteristics, speed and maneuverability, still images, video clips of military sensors some interagency assessments encounters that were recently had.

So it's a whole kind of laundry list, but the biggest problem with all of it is there was no context. It's just a dump of image files some old reports that have been declassified, but no analysis of the data that was carried out by the government. So it was [00:53:00] basically just grainy images. What there was none of it, and obviously this is what people would be looking for based on David Grusch's testimony back in 2023, is there was no evidence of extraterrestrial technology operating in US airspace, no extraterrestrial biological life, and then no confirmation of non-human intelligence.

So from that perspective pretty, pretty disappointing. In terms of what people have been talking about, I'd say the thing that is most seen online are these photos from the Apollo moon landings, I think from like Apollo 12 and Apollo 17. Uh, they show kind of weird images off in the distance. You know, there's astronauts on the moon, they're taking a photo, but then off in the sky in the distance are kind of like strange looking lights.

Anita Kellogg: And you think the astronauts themselves would have seen that?

Ryan Kellogg: They-- Yeah, and I think, I mean, [00:54:00] the, the part of it is these testimonies from, you know, legitimate sources. There's lots of testimonies from astronauts, you know- Mm ... both that went to the moon and orbiting the Earth of things that looked weird. So they report all those things, and those get documented by the government.

Uh, and this follows along those lines, although everything I've seen is like these are probably like camera flares or some sort of camera- Yeah ... artifacts from the time and is not like a real, a real phenomenon. So a lot of this is still-- So people are, are unsatisfied. And I will say, so News Nation, which is the, uh has, uh, like Chris Cuomo, but it, it's sort of re- uh, or positioned itself within the 24-hour seven news station market because of its coverage on UFOs and UAP.

So they're reporting that actually tomorrow that congressional members from the UAP caucus, which is kind of the committee that's also been [00:55:00] hearing, you know, some of this testimony, and David Grusch are expected to take to the steps of the Capitol to, to push for greater government transparency. Now supposedly, so the government has set up a website that has all of this information on it.

Uh, I'm sure that Hegseth promoted it. Uh, and they promise additional releases 'cause apparently the material from the CIA will be released in the near future. But it is www.war.gov UFO, and that's where all of the, uh, the material... So these first two tranches were released, like I said, on May 8th and May 22nd, but there are future tranches that will be coming. But I would say so far people are pretty disappointed. A lot of this stuff is, has kinda already been out there. Uh, and then there's no analysis around it, 'cause obviously the government took a look at it and wrote intelligence [00:56:00] reports analyzing the likely causes, but none of that was made, was made public.

Anita Kellogg: Okay then. That's all because there are no aliens detected. I mean, I'm sure that they exist somewhere in the universe, but, uh, I don't think they've been to Earth. I think there's too much evidence against it.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, yeah, but what, what, what motivates... All right, and we, we talked about this before back in episode 37, I'm sure.

What's the motivation behind a pretty highly ranked, let's say a GS-14, GS-15 intelligence officer like David Grusch to make up? 'Cause he testam- he testified in front of Congress, which supposedly is a crime when you lie, that he saw evidence of alien technology and biologics, or at least reported evidence or reports, you know, detailing these sort of things.

What, what [00:57:00] motivates that individual? Just from a human perspective, what-

Anita Kellogg: I think he believes that he saw that

Ryan Kellogg: But you just think it was despite being... I mean, 'cause intelligence officers

should be trained skeptics, right? They should question evidence, demand data, all that sort of stuff. What would take an individual that they would perceive that to the extent that they believed it so strongly that they end their career, they start a whole new crusade essentially, and testify, perjure themselves in front of Congress around something that, that doesn't exi- And obviously enough people in Congress believe about it to form a caucus, and well, you can say what you want about representatives in Congress, but there's other people that m- maybe have seen some sort of evidence or some, you know, more evidence than what's been disclosed currently.

Anita Kellogg: I think [00:58:00] people interpret the data they've seen to support-

Ryan Kellogg: To support alien life and alien technol- That's a big... How do you go from, like, reading a standard government report to being like, "Oh, okay. Well, this clearly says there's alien technology."

Anita Kellogg: I don't know why the, like, renowned scientists sometimes believe it too.

I mean-

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I don't know. I-- This is, like, just an open question of why people- But

Anita Kellogg: why did... I mean, why did the author of Sherlock Holmes, which was very analytical and databased Yeah. I mean-

Ryan Kellogg: Wait, wait, what do you, what, what did, what, he believed in aliens? What are you saying?

Anita Kellogg: He believed in the paranormal.

Ryan Kellogg: Oh, okay.

Anita Kellogg: Something that is not fact-based. I mean, what... So why does anyone accept things that, that seem to go against their profession?

Ryan Kellogg: Well, usually they've, yeah, they've had a either a personal experience, personal [00:59:00] encounter that can't be explained, so they're basing it on the evidence from their own sensory perspective.

That's often the case when people that are highly educated that then believe in the paranormal or aliens or whatever. It's because they had a personal experience and are taking that personal evidence into account. I'm not aware of, like, a guy like David Grosh having a personal experience, but this is based on what he's reading within the government, within his job as a, you know, working...

'Cause he worked on this, uh, the committee that was set up in 2017. How

Anita Kellogg: would there not be more definitive disclosures if this existed?

Ryan Kellogg: Well, I mean, the conspiracy is that, that it's too earth-breaking for even the Trump administration to release.

Anita Kellogg: I don't believe it. I think there'd be a lot more David Grosh's, uh, with harder evidence.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. [01:00:00] Yeah, yeah. I-

Anita Kellogg: So I don't think he's perjuring himself in the sense that I do think he believes in what he's saying.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, but doesn't that represent then a mental break?

Anita Kellogg: Sure. I mean, it's just going back to, I say why do certain people who seem to have their whole lives-

Ryan Kellogg: Okay, so you're just saying people, these are people that have had mental breaks of some sort.

Anita Kellogg: Or just like you said, maybe he has had a personal experience that he can't explain, and so that's opened him up to- I...

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah ...

Anita Kellogg: thinking of this data in a different way.

Ryan Kellogg: I mean, that, that may be. It's nothing he's testified under or mentioned, like, in interviews of, like, a, a personal experience or something that we're gonna count.

Yeah, certainly nothing around encountering.

Anita Kellogg: Well, maybe he felt like it wasn't a definitive or something, you know-

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah ... but. I think, I mean, to, to your point, one of the interesting things that came out of the survey, so Americans that do believe, I don't have the statistics in front of me, but there is a distinct correlation [01:01:00] between the belief in the existence of aliens, and I don't know if that includes, like, aliens have visited Earth and being non-religious.

So people that are more non-religious or atheists tend to have a higher belief in aliens or extraterrestrials than people, you know, for instance, that are, are Christian, um, which is a much lower belief in extraterrestrials and- I

Anita Kellogg: do ... so. I think there's life somewhere in the universe.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think- The universe is

Anita Kellogg: huge.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, exactly.

Anita Kellogg: And I think there's a lot of things that we encounter in our lives that we can't explain scientifically, so we turn to these alternative explanations.

Ryan Kellogg: Right.

Anita Kellogg: Because we just, science hasn't had the ability to measure it. We haven't discovered it scientifically yet. So I think there are things that are unknowable.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and I think that's where this, this fits in. 'Cause, I mean, [01:02:00] I, I think you're right. The traditional explanation, everything we know about physics and life is that, yeah, the universe is, is huge, but the conditions for life appear pretty widely prevalent, you know, just in the, the star systems that we can observe.

So it seems like, yeah, there's gotta be life of f- some form, you know, throughout the universe. But then it comes down to the distance and what we know about the ability to travel fast, and if you can't exceed the speed of light, then there's no way that a civilization can, like, cover these distances, so what's the chance of aliens having visited the planet?

Anita Kellogg: Yeah.

Ryan Kellogg: That being said- I can't believe we're arguing over this ... there were plenty of times in human history where we thought we understood the physics of things, but we really didn't. It's true. I mean- And there's a lot of weird stuff, you know, especially at the quantum level around physics that obviously we don't understand that leaves the room for [01:03:00] the possibility that aliens have visited Earth.

Sam Enrlich: Okay.

Anita Kellogg: You said that.

I think even if you could prove they can travel faster than the speed of light, it does not prove that aliens have ever visited Earth

Ryan Kellogg: Uh, yeah, but then it does raise the possibility that it's, it's certainly a much higher chance- Okay ... that they could reach Earth.

Anita Kellogg: But right now we have no evidence of that.

Ryan Kellogg: This is true. This is true.

Anita Kellogg: Well, finally, we are going to turn to my interview with Sam Ehrlich. I kind of already introduced it but I think critical minerals is a topic that we should all be more aware of.

It's geopolitically very strategic. China controls most of it, and it's used in all the stuff that you use every day, like phones, computers, I don't know, even, even smaller products that maybe you're not thinking of. But I hope everyone enjoys. I thought it was a [01:04:00] great interview

Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics. I'm Anita, and I'm here with our special guest, Sam Ehrlich. You probably have never thought much about the minerals inside your phone or your laptop or your car, but here's the thing, without a handful of obscure elements pulled from the ground in a few corners of the world, none of those devices exist.

And right now, those minerals are at the center of one of the biggest geopolitical contests of our time. We're talking about critical minerals: lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, nickel, and dozens of others that the modern economy simply cannot function without. They're in the batteries powering the electric vehicle revolution.

They're in the magnets inside wind turbines. They're in semiconductors, running everything from your refrigerator to an F-35 fighter jet. Here's what makes them critical. It's not just that they're valuable, it's that supply is concentrated in very few places, and demand is about to go through the [01:05:00] roof.

The International Energy Agency projects that demand for some of these minerals could increase tenfold by 2040, and right now, China controls the processing for most of them. So what happens when the clean energy transition and the national security converge on the same small list of rocks? That's what we're here to dig into, no pun intended.

My guest today is Sam Ehrlich. Sam is an engagement manager at McKenzie and Company, where he works in the defense practice. Today, he is speaking in a capacity as a student at the National Defense University. He was a student in my strategic materials industry study course, where during the semester, they had a chance to interact with industry professionals, including site visits, government officials, and academics.

Over the course of the semester, Sam developed a set of observations about the key challenges and fault lines in the critical mineral space, and today, we're going to hear what he found, what surprised him, and what he thinks the people in [01:06:00] boardrooms and government offices are still getting wrong. Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Enrlich: Yeah, thanks, Anita. Pleasure to be here, and looking forward to the conversation today.

Anita Kellogg: Me as well. So to get into it, to begin with, why are critical minerals important? Why should people care about this issue?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. Um, I, I think you hit the nail on the head in your intro. But there's, there's a lot of media attention around this right now, and obviously a lot of cross-sector interest you know, be it the public sector, private sector kinda social sector space.

I think the simplest framing for, for why they're critical is, is kinda what you talked about. Every technology that defines our modern world runs on a, on a critical group of minerals, and that could be the 60 that you know, USGS has designated. It could be a couple dozen more, it could be a couple dozen less.

Uh, but basically [01:07:00] they're the physical foundation underneath several of, I would say, the, the largest trends, uh, happening all at once. And, um, in terms of what's converging right now, you know, we've got the clean energy transition, so your batteries and EVs and grid storage. You have, uh, the defense industrial base.

Almost every system that, that that industrial base pumps out, you know, depends on, on dozens of these minerals. And then you've got the, the compute trend, and you've got AI, um, data center build-out, semiconductors, which, you know, these minerals feed into at a large scale as well. So you've got these three enormous kinda simultaneous demand waves, uh, and they're all pulling on the same constrained supply or set of, of materials.

And, um, and then it gets a little bit more complex, and I'm sure we'll get into this, but, you know, you have, you have the commercial complexity, and then you have the national security complexity. And, and [01:08:00] that's where it gets really tricky you know, based on the dependence on foreign inputs and I'm sure we'll get into that.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, exactly. So- You've touched on this a little bit, but can you go into a little more detail about the most important concerns regarding critical minerals?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. Yeah, and I think if you look at where the US is, is coming from on this you know, it, it's worried that the miner- the, I guess the minerals, uh, that we need for weapons and chips and batteries, et cetera they depend on supply chains controlled or influenced by China.

And especially on the processing and refining piece, not just the mining piece. And so I think there's a real fear here that in a crisis and we've already seen signs of it, but that China or another adversary could cut off or slow roll or even price spike kinda key [01:09:00] inputs, and that would leave the US, both the defense industrial base as l- you know, as well as the economy writ large very vulnerable and possibly unable to build systems that we, that we depend on from a defense perspective and from a, you know, US average consumer perspective.

Uh, and so I think we've seen this in some of our, like, national, uh, level, uh, strategy documents, whether it be the national security strategy or some of DOE's priorities, uh, it comes back to this, to this point. And so I'd say you know, certainly from the public sector perspective, there's, there's real concerns.

And then, and then the commercial sector as well you know, when you think about the, the operation side of this you know, there's real implications for production delays plant shutdowns higher input costs. And so it's not just a public sector [01:10:00] concern. Certainly the national security perspective is sort of a more immediate case, but I think the commercial sector is, is equally concerned.

Anita Kellogg: China, in response to Trump's trade tariffs the previous April, responded by restricting certain critical minerals. How has that affected the US to date?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. Yeah, I think, um, you know, and, and there's been a history of this since even back to, um, you know, 2009, 2010. But yeah, even in the past couple years, we've seen them restrict either through licensing or other kind of export controls, antimony, gallium germanium I'm probably forgetting a few.

But, um, yeah, I think this has real exports real export concerns. I think US industry is, [01:11:00] is very much affected by it and they're dependent on that supplier base. And so part of that US kind of commercial sector is the DIB. And, and so this ultimately gets back to to the criticality of national security priorities, and it affects them.

You know, I- if you just look at the kind of supply and demand curve when China restricts these things, it, it, it really challenges the assumptions that our commercial sector's been built on

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I was reading recently that about a third of all the Pentagon's programs are at risk of shortages if these trade barriers are not pulled back.

And in fact, this was supposed to be a very important topic between Trump's recent visit to China with Xi, and there was some disappointment that nothing more concrete was done, although they keep agreeing to talk about it [01:12:00] some more. So s- definitely, as you said, a pretty serious issue and an ongoing one that impacts national security, but also the commercial side, as you mentioned.

What experience most impacted the way you looked at the industry?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. From, from the semester?

Anita Kellogg: Yes.

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. I would say you know, a lot of our domestic field site visits were pretty impactful, uh, in terms of just gaining knowledge around the challenges with, with this industry and, and just better understanding it.

But I would say visiting MP Materials was, uh, and being kind of currently the only operating rare earth mine in the US, uh, was really insightful. I think as, you know, we were standing there looking at that, that open pit. And I think the one thing that lands there is that, you know, we-- you hear in the news about the, [01:13:00] the rare earth shortage and and kind of some of the hysteria around that, and we actually do have the geology, we have the resources.

We are not a resource-poor country in the sense of, of what's in the ground. But what we lacked was the the capacity to actually, and the ability to actually capture the rest of that value chain after actually having the minerals in the ground. And I think MP is, is an awesome case study in, in that full value chain actually, uh, being able to be onshore.

And they, they've been focused on, um, you know, domestic ma-magnet manufacturing, uh, and in, and in partnership with, with the public sector have essentially built kind of an end-to-end, uh, or are building, uh, an end-to-end capability from, from kind of a resource all the way to, to finished magnet. Uh, and so I think it's a case study in, [01:14:00] in s- in certain cases, onshoring can be successful.

I'd say the, the other visit that was really interesting that we took, um, and now we're moving, I guess, a little bit further downstream, uh, was to the uh, domestic magnet manufacturer. So that was their core business. And so they depended on foreign supply of rare earths, and it was the perfect illustration of, of a, um, I guess geopolitical choke point.

They make the magnet, but the, the rare earth concentrate itself comes almost entirely from, from foreign inputs. Um- And so when Beijing, to your point earlier, when Beijing imposed licensing controls in 2025, this US kinda core defense supplier was suddenly exposed in, in a major way. And their workaround you know, no fault to them, but their [01:15:00] workaround almost seemed improvised.

And, uh, it just shows how a shock like that can really affect, uh, our commercial sector.

Anita Kellogg: We have most of the minerals in the United States, and that kinda gets lost in this discussion. But what is difficult is the economics of even extracting them, although we do better at that than the other part, but particularly processing, the midstream processing, and then the downstream producing magnets and the goods we need.

And that's where the real chokehold that China has over us. Even if we extract it, we have to send it to China to have them process it, make them into magnets, and then we are reliant on those, those goods.

Ryan Kellogg: Absolutely.

Anita Kellogg: The class spent a week in Chile and Argentina studying their approach to critical minerals.

What are some observations you had while studying the industry there?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah, I, I think, um, it was really interesting getting an international perspective from countries [01:16:00] the kind of outside of, of the US and Australia and, and Western Europe and I guess Canada. But yeah, so, so I guess in, in Chile and Argentina with Bolivia, uh, they form the, the lithium triangle.

And that, you know, they have I think it's over 50% of known global lithium reserves. So we're talking that, that geography in the south is genuinely strategic territory. I think, you know, in terms of our trip to Chile and, and Argentina what struck me about Chile was I guess how deliberate the state involvement was.

So they have Codelco, uh, which is the state-owned copper company. Uh, but Codelco's also been handed the lead on Chile's national lithium strategy. And show-- it just shows that you know, the push by to have a, a meaningful stake [01:17:00] for the state, uh, in, in these operations in this industry. But then, you know, we go just across the border to Argentina, and Argentina under Milei is, is almost the complete opposite image.

You know, there's deregulation, there's, uh, lifting capital controls, there's sort of a race to attract foreign capital. And Argentina's making this push, you know, they're offering these large kind of regulatory stability opportunities you know, locked in through decades through this new framework that they have RIGI.

R-I-R-I-G-I is the acronym. And, and I think Argentina is essentially saying like We know investors have probably been burned by our political risk in the past, and so now we're gonna put this legal framework in place and, um, these incentives in place, uh, that folks [01:18:00] can trust to, to really kind of bring investment and mining operations, uh, back into, uh, Argentina.

And I think there's, you know, there's some similarities and some differences between the two countries. I would say you know, both have world-class deposits, obviously, and both want to capture more of that value domestically. But the difference to what I was just getting at is, is really the philosophy.

Like Chile thinks, uh, the state should be the core partner. Argentina thinks like the state should get largely out of the way, but, but maybe enable where needed. And then the last thing on similarities and differences is kind of the, the geography and, and logistics gap. Um, uh, you know, Chile, a lot of their lithium, uh, sits up in the, in the Atacama Desert and a lot of [01:19:00] it's kind of high quality, favorable chemistry and, and has close access to the Pacific ports, which is the key issue here.

Whereas in Argentina their deposits can be more varied, but, but more importantly is the infrastructure to get the the product to a port is, is much less developed. And so we actually saw that down there as a, um, kind of critical issue for, for Argentina

Anita Kellogg: So we've been talking about the US's dependence on China, but the rest of the world is also, has the same dependence.

And will any of their policies impact dependence on China, or is this even a dependence that they're concerned about?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. That's a good question. Maybe, yeah, I, I think I... If you almost reframe the question because I think to your point, like, are they even worried about it the premise maybe doesn't even [01:20:00] match how, how we kind of saw them thinking down there.

You know, I think reducing dependence on China is a US and maybe allied preoccupation. It, it maybe isn't what's animating Santiago or Buenos Aires right now. I think from where they sit, China isn't kind of a, primarily a threat to hedge against. To them, China is a customer. It brings financing.

It's a potential development partner and it's already embedded in, in the region. And so I think what those two countries are optimizing for, and probably many others across the world, is economic standing versus national security resiliency. And so they're, they're looking for investment inflows more jobs royalties.

Chile takes a massive stake in, [01:21:00] in kind of some of the, the royalties, even for privately owned companies down there. And, and these countries, they want to move up the value chain and they're looking for a partner who will help them do that, that will help them industrialize, and China has shown up.

They've shown up with capital, and they've shown up with a buyer's appetite. And so I think to what kind of we've been talking about, the, the national security framing that the US focuses on and that US policy focuses on isn't some of these other countries maybe organizing principle. They're certainly aware of the geopolitics, and we talk to them about that.

I just don't think it's their core motivation.

Anita Kellogg: Right. One of the things that also sparks this question is memorandas of understanding that the US has signed with both Chile and Argentina on [01:22:00] cooperation with critical minerals. Part of this is some pressure that the United States puts on them to be worth less with China.

What was their attitude about that?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. I, I think, um, it'll be an interesting question that we'll see play out, you know, over the next couple years, over the next five years. You know, China is a, is a major player in this industry and, and not just from some of the s- things we were talking about, you know, bringing capital and investment inflows and and sometimes even best practices into these places.

It's... There's a dependence on China controls. Uh, you know, people have estimated, I think 60 to 90% of processing, uh, and refining for for the whole list of critical minerals. Uh, some of them obviously less so, but, but I think when you average it out. And, and so until that shifts, [01:23:00] until there is meaningful processing and refining in other places you know, countries will h- almost have to rely on, on China.

A- and so it'll be interesting to see as these, um, kind of memorandums of understanding and, and other trade agreements come out, how that'll play into this because there's this massive dependence that until someone, you know, starts to bring operations online elsewhere for processing and refining, it will be the, the key player

Anita Kellogg: So obviously they have a lot of lithium.

Do you think putting that lithium on the market alters the dependence on China, or is just the processing part of it so concentrated there that it doesn't make a big difference geopolitically?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah, I, I would say you know, it- they will need to add... It, it's one thing to have the brine it's, it's another thing to be able to [01:24:00] process all of that afterwards.

And so you know, I don't know right now where Chile and, and Argentina stand on, on kind of the percentage that, that they can process from what they extract, but there is still reliance on China, and, um, I think that's going to have to be a, a pretty large strategic decision that they make if they want to onshore that.

Because, you know, you mentioned the economics of it earlier. The, the economics of, of extraction is one thing. It's, it's a whole 'nother almost industry for processing and refining. You're talking about massive CapEx again, you know, to even stand up a facility, and then the ongoing maintenance and sort of operational efficiency and throughput that you have to focus on.

It, it's, it is almost a different industry than extraction.

Anita Kellogg: More generally, what are some of your key takeaways from studying the industry? [01:25:00]

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. And, you know, maybe we've loosely hit on some of them, but I think uh, one of the biggest ones is, is what we were just talking about the midstream. So we're talking about processing and refining.

And in layman's terms, we're talking about processing is kind of removing waste rock from what you actually want to extract, and, and refining is actually targeting specific elements or mineral compounds, which is a, a little bit further downstream from processing. But I feel like mining it is almost less worrying you know, part of this story than than mi- than processing and, and refining.

Like, the US and its allies, as, as we mentioned, are, they're not geologically poor. They have... I think the US has deposits of every single critical mineral on the critical mineral list. Now, some of those may not be economical to extract, [01:26:00] but we have the deposits. And so if you were to actually kinda draw a line of the, of the value chain from, you know extraction all the way down to, to end product, you almost have this smile curve.

It's this hollowed-out middle-

Anita Kellogg: Hmm ...

Sam Enrlich: Where the, the refining and separation and kinda intermediate chemistry need to happen, and the US doesn't have that. And so what ends up happening is, is we s- we mine in the US, and we still have to ship the concentrate to China or elsewhere to get turned into something usable, and that's a real choke point.

And I would say the other piece of this, aside from, from the broader issue, is, is a more specific one, and that is that there is massive opportunities in extracting byproducts. And so these are the, uh, minerals that kinda naturally attach themself to a host metal. Um, so you can think of, uh, [01:27:00] like germanium coming out of zinc smelting or gallium coming out of, uh, aluminum refining.

And, um, a- and so you can only largely kind of get these minerals as byproducts from these host metals. And, uh, to be able to do that, you need the, the refining capability, uh, which the US is starting to stand up, uh, with things like Crucible Metals and Italco. Um, but I mean, there have been studies that, that have looked at this and feel s- pretty confident that even a small percentage recovery rate of some of these byproducts gallium, germanium, tellurium, indium, et cetera, as a small percent could meet our, our actual demand need.

And so that's the other piece of this processing or this kind of smile curve in the middle that is really important. I'd [01:28:00] say, you know, as I think about other lessons that we learned you know, the, the demand side of this is critical, and I think it often gets overlooked, and people obsess about the supply of, of critical minerals.

But no company or, or very few are gonna go into business without sort of a credible, durable demand signal. Um-

Anita Kellogg: Mm-hmm ...

Sam Enrlich: and, and some of that's offtake. And, and that's, in a lot of cases, what's missing. And that gets into a whole 'nother conversation about, you know, pricing and and kind of the unit economics here versus in China and elsewhere in the world.

But, like, the interesting point is that, like, the defense market itself is, is really small when you think about it. The, the Pentagon's annual appetite for most of these minerals is a rounding error against what it costs to stand up a processing plant. So defense demand alone cannot [01:29:00] anchor the US onshoring these minerals.

It's gonna have to be a, sort of a, a broader consortium of original equipment manufacturers and others that are willing to buy domestically. And, and so I think the demand piece was, was a huge unlock over the, over the semester. Uh, we've touched on the economics. I, I mean, the, the... It's a, it's a capital-intensive industry.

The unit economics are punishing. Commodity prices are, are super volatile. I mean, we saw lithium collapse by, I think, like 80% a couple years ago, which, um, I think I was reading is the, is the largest commodity price decrease maybe in recent history. And so, and so i-if you don't have set prices and you have, you know, the Chinese dumping and actually influencing prices outside of just supply and demand issues, it creates a, a very kind of uncertain economic environment [01:30:00] that firms are...

can be unwilling to want to get into the space, and certainly private capital is hesitant to get into the space. And I think overall, uh, last point I'd make on kind of what we learned is, i-is sort of, you know, you have all of this, and then it's, it's nexus with policy. Um, and, and so it matters, uh, the instrument, the policy instrument that you are using to try and solve this problem.

And there's no kind of magic wand or universally right tool that, that you can use. But you have several options, and so a CapEx grant, you know, is the right tool for certain issues. Maybe a facility doesn't exist and you need a facility, but private capital won't, won't go in on it versus like a price floor or offtake commitment, which is actually trying to solve the demand issue.

And so you know, you're trying to... [01:31:00] You have to kind of figure out what question are you trying to solve, and I think that was a piece that, that we were as a class working through all semester, which is, you know, what is w- you know, where is policy targeted, and is it on the right thing?

Anita Kellogg: Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. So before we get to some more discussion on the policies that the US has enacted, part of what I know that we, we talked about is that the United States Geological Survey has identified 60 minerals as critical. Does the US need to prioritize this list? And if so, how do they go about doing so?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah, really good question, and I think something that as a class we worked on kind of all semester. But, uh, so I think in short, yes. But I think the right first question probably isn't which mineral goes where it's, [01:32:00] it's to pri- kinda prioritize for a specific goal. Like you need the goal and then you can start to prioritize.

Um, I will say credit where credit's due, like the, there's some very bright folks across the government right now thinking about this and, and really honing in on what is the goal, and it's a wicked problem. Like you know, there, th-there are all sorts of frameworks that are out there right now. You know, DOE's put one out, DOI/the USGS has put one out, DoD and others, thinking about the criticality and the framework to, to really start to think about where do we target policy interventions.

But again, it comes back to defining the objective. Each goal could produce a completely different list. And so I do think the US needs to think about, you know, is the goal defense supply resilience? Our, you know, is our, is our primary goal to make sure that the Pentagon [01:33:00] can build weapons systems through a crisis?

Or is our goal economic competitiveness across the value chain, across the, the, the smile curve that we were talking about? Um, and that's a totally different, uh, goal to go pursue. And then is the goal kind of reducing near-term import dependence? Um, or, or how long are we thinking about doing this?

Because certain companies aren't gonna get involved in the business if this is a, if this is a short-term initiative. A-and then there's the prior, you know, the, the strategic choice that we kinda talked about earlier underneath all of that. And that's you know, and kinda getting back to the smile curve.

Like are, are we trying to secure the whole supply chain for one of those goals? Like in the instance of, uh, example of rare earths, are we trying, you know, from rare earth you know, in the ground all the way to magnet or component, or are we just trying to guarantee access to the, to the material in getting [01:34:00] to like, you know, rare earth concentrate or, or oxide?

And those are very different ambitions, and, and it's, it's certainly a different price tag depending on the goal. And so I think that's, that's the first step. Before you say let's prioritize the, the list of 60 that the USGS has put out let's first align on a goal. And I, and I, I truly think that in the conversations that we've had, it sounds like that's happening with with the NSC and others.

But but I think that's step one

Anita Kellogg: So what are the top three challenges in the United States to effectively develop this industry?

Sam Enrlich: Yeah. And that's tough because, I mean, we, we probably came up with a list of I don't know, probably over 20 different discrete challenges. But I would say maybe first is, like the largest kind of strategic [01:35:00] challenge is this inherent misalignment between sectors.

And, you know there's national security interests and then there's commercial economics, and sometimes those line up, uh, and other times they do not. And so you know, a mine or a processing plant, uh, it can be strategically essential for national security, uh, but it can be commercially unviable at the exact same time.

And so when the two align, the policy problem, I think, becomes a little bit easier. You know, there's a big commercial market for something, w- maybe lithium for EVs that also happens to serve defense so private capital doesn't, you know need to be, uh... Or private capital does most of the work.

Government doesn't need to be so involved in it. But the hard case is when they don't align, and that's when you have kinda low [01:36:00] volumes of these materials that are defense-specific, like take samarium as an example. And, and so then you know, the government almost has to price national security resiliency.

Uh, you know, it has to make a decision on, like what is national security resilience worth? How do we actually decide how much to put into samarium or whatever it is? Um, you know, and is it, you know, worth fully financing a processing plant or a mine that may never turn a profit? Or is it worth subsidizing a OEM, a- original equipment manufacturer, for the long term?

You know, should we be paying a multiple of a price that's, you know, used in other parts of the world to keep a domestic capability alive? And this all gets back to that, to that strategic goal question. Uh, but I think right now we do not have a way that I know of to, to price kinda national security resiliency.

And so [01:37:00] some of these decisions end up getting made late and on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes only after a crisis begins. And so I think the misalignment, and it's inherent between the, the commercial markets and national security resiliency is, was the, the first and, and biggest kind of strategic challenge.

And then, uh, we talked about kind of the demand issues. I'd say that was kind of the second macro challenge. And I know you only asked for three, but I'd say in terms of targeted challenges, uh, maybe the big ones that kept coming up were, uh, the processing piece, which we covered, the hollowed-out middle workforce and technical capacity is a huge one.

So the numbers of, uh, metallurgists and mineralogists processing engineers, you name it, all these very specific kinda career paths within this industry, uh, are not where, the numbers are not where they need to be right now. And [01:38:00] then I would add, and this came up at the beginning of our semester as you know, it was in the forefront of all of our minds, and I think it's received a ton of attention, uh, in the media, but permitting.

And it's worth a mention as, as a major challenge. You know, to, to spend a decade plus trying to bring a major mine or processing plant online is, is not competitive, and we've seen that timeline actually extend out to, like, you know, 29 years in some cases. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and so that, that's... You know, if, if this is a goal of ours, th- that's a real problem.

But I don't think it's, it's the deepest strategic challenge

Anita Kellogg: So the United States under President Trump has definitely been very focused on the critical minerals issue and has spent billions of dollars, both domestically and significant capital abroad as well. Is any of this working? [01:39:00] And should, should they continue with the same strategy, or do they need a new strategy?

Sam Enrlich: So yeah, to your point, I mean, I, I-- we have seen I think at this point over the past five years, maybe a little bit less and across like loans, equity, and grants, and I think we're talking upwards $20 billion in, invested into the mining, uh, and metals, uh, value chain across critical minerals.

I think there have been you know, some of these investments that, that aren't in kinda national news or, or have hit kind of national attention yet that, that are really important that they're making kind of below the radar. And then I think they've made some that, that obviously have made headlines, like the MP deal and some of the other equity stakes and some of the larger [01:40:00] loan commitments that, that really are m- if this is the goal, that really are going to make progress.

Like, uh, MP being able to... And, and part of that is the government, but part of it is MP as a, as a company making strides to onshore you know, domestic magnet manufacturing, and they're, they're doing this in other cases too. We, we mentioned byproducts earlier. Well, the, the Crucible Metals deal, um, Atalco, like those are going to, uh, hopefully, and they've put out public statements around it reduce our reliance on imports for a lot of these byproduct minerals.

And so yeah, I think where they've placed chips has, um, uh, has done a lot, and I think it'll be a few years, uh, once these processing plants and mines become a little bit more operational and, and kind of start to hit their [01:41:00] stride, where we'll see a lot of the impact here. So I think a little bit too early to tell, but from what I can see th- they have, they've started to make major impact in this area.

You know, whether or not, and, and, uh, we're not privy to these conversations, so I, I don't know, but it'd be interesting to know what the goal or objective is. I think there are some broad ones that, that get released publicly, and I, I assume there are more specific ones that we're not privy to.

But but I think that's the issue is, it may be the, the core issue is, you know, what are they, what are they solving? They've made impact, but, um, what is, what is the ultimate objective?

Anita Kellogg: I think that's an important point is you keep emphasizing having a specific goal in mind So you guys came up with, in your group report, several great recommendations.

What do you think were the top three for the US to undertake the national [01:42:00] security dimension of this industry?

Sam Enrlich: You, you have to define the objective. Like, be honest about what the US can and, and can't onshore. Be deliberate about, you know, where you need to onshore, where you want to friendshore. And, and so that, that's sort of an overlying piece.

But you know, what, what we thought about was a lot of this processing and, and repo- and refining piece. So you know, one, how do you start to get a lot of these critical elements, uh, like gallium or germanium from byproduct processing? Uh, and so we looked at, you know, how, how do you increase either demand incentives or just straight kind of capital incentives into that system to boost our ability to to start to build that supply of these byproducts.

Uh, so that was one of our, our kind of top three recommendations. [01:43:00] Also you know, when you think about refining we have very few refineries in the country right now, uh, and I know that we are increasing investment into others, but, but we put that as another kind of targeted recommendation is, is to look at where does it make sense?

What kind of refinery would it be? What do you get from it? What would the supply levels be coming out of it? Would that meet US demand? And if it exceeds US demand, which actually in some of these cases it could, what does the US become? What's the strategy there? Do we become a net exporter for some of these minerals?

It'll be interesting to see. And then I think the other piece of this, and we've talked a little bit about it, is, you know, how do you match the financing instrument to the, to the problem? Mm-hmm. You know, when do you use the, the price floor and the, and the offtake model? You know, if it's [01:44:00] the, this commodity won't survive the next price crash, so we have to build in some mechanism to, to help it survive that.

Or this won't get built, so let's actually, you know, look at more of like a grant or, um, some sort of uh, like financial infusion into that area. Um, and then I think the last piece that is important is and somewhat of a recommendation, but more of like a through line through all of this is, you know, China's ability to do the processing and refining it was built on decades of very deliberate, like patient work and, and a strategy.

And some of that was, you know, loose policy and And other things that, that maybe wouldn't work in, in this country. But, but also a part of it was a very deliberate technical strategy and a very deliberate architecture. And so the US needs to focus on [01:45:00] that here is, is being very precise, being very deliberate, and thinking in, in the long term.

And that's the last piece I'll make is, is thinking in the long term. Because I feel like, you know, these companies look at, at policy intervention and, you know, they see it depending on the time and, and a lot of other factors. They see policy lurching, and they see it lurching with the news cycle and possibly with election calendars.

And so, you know, the US can, can be writing kind of big checks right now and, and doing all this work, but this industry, these companies, the commercial sector, they wanna see credible commitment you know, and an emphasis and demand signal that won't change in two years because they're, they're not building these, these processing plants or a new mine to, you know, to be shut down in two years.

They need, you know, longer term commitment multi, multi, multi-year. Uh, and so I think if the US can think [01:46:00] about, you know, how does it ensure that you're protecting these companies over the long run and that they trust you, that'll be one of the biggest issues for them to, to solve.

Anita Kellogg: That's great. Well, thank you so much for coming on our show, and I think we all learned a lot from you.

I think it was a great class, and I think you did a great job representing the, the, y- the findings that you all came up with.

Sam Enrlich: No, thank you, Anita. Yeah, it was a, it was an amazing class. You know, thank you for all your work in it. Obviously Greg as well. But, um, uh, in the, in the class as a whole, this, this was a group learning experience.

Our product was a group learning experience and and, uh, yeah, it was a phenomenal experience. So, so thank you again.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Well, thanks for being here. It's-

Anita Kellogg: Well, I think that brings us to the end of this episode of "Kellogg's Global Politics." You can visit our website at [01:47:00] www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com and follow us on X @globalkellogg or me @arkellogg.

Ryan Kellogg: You can also reach us by email, so anita@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com, myself ryan@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com. As always, please see the show notes for the articles we discussed in this episode.

Anita Kellogg: Thanks everyone.

Ryan Kellogg: Bye.