Snatching minerals from other countries is not a smart strategy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/01/trump-minerals-ukraine/ 

It was in the 19th century that the United States started grabbing territory to exploit natural resources. The Guano Islands Act of 1856 enabled the seizure of unclaimed islands rich in the sought-after fertilizer. Ultimately, the United States annexed nearly 100 of these islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean, according to historian Daniel Immerwahr (and some of them were reconfigured to host airfields and military bases in the post-guano years).

President Donald Trump apparently likes the strategy. His gambit to take control of Ukraine’s deposits of lithium, graphite, cobalt, rare metals and so forth — after calling for buying Greenland and taking over Canada, in part to nab their vast troves of critical minerals — suggests that he is fashioning a 19th-century strategy to work in the 21st.