Saudi Arabia calls for closer cooperation on critical minerals

Saudi Arabia is using Davos this week to call for closer global cooperation on mining and critical minerals amid growing tensions over competition for resources as Donald Trump stirs the pot.

As the U.S. President left Washington to address the World Economic Forum, Saudi Minister of Mining and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef warned on Monday that countries risk conflict if they try to squeeze out competitors.

“We cannot afford a world where every country tries to secure critical minerals on its own,” Alkhorayef told a Davos panel, urging shared frameworks and cross-border partnerships.

Trump is scheduled to address the WEF today in the conference’s most anticipated event as he confronts European allies over his plans to take over Greenland from Denmark, in part because of its underground stores of rare earths such as graphite, copper, zinc and titanium.

Saudi Arabia has been positioning itself as a hub for mineral processing and investment, with Alkhorayef framing cooperation as essential to stabilizing supply chains and easing geopolitical strain. The kingdom, which is trying to diversify its economy away from reliance on oil, has an estimated $2.5 trillion in mineral wealth.

“We realized that unlocking the value that we have in our natural resources, of the different minerals that we have, will definitely help our economy to grow, to diversify,” Alkhorayef said.