President Donald Trump rightly understands that rebuilding American manufacturing requires transformational change on multiple levels. His focus on U.S. energy dominance, which Alaska’s abundant natural resources can support, will keep costs low for businesses and families alike. But rebuilding American manufacturing also requires the United States to develop its own sources of raw materials—and Alaska can help on this front too.

Take graphite, the largest component of lithium-ion batteries by weight. Graphite has myriad applications—from batteries and nuclear reactors to advanced missiles and hypersonic systems—and has been designated as a critical mineral essential to our national security under the Defense Production Act.

Yet the United States has a 100 percent import reliance on this important mineral—and China controls the vast majority of global processing. It doesn’t take a national security expert to realize that, as with other critical minerals, allowing a foreign adversary to monopolize supplies of this important resource jeopardizes our economy and national security.

The Biden administration recognized this problem—but, as usual, offered the wrong solution. In 2023, it announced a $150 million loan to boost mining at a facility in Mozambique, and then doubled down with an additional $107 million in U.S. funding. But the year before, the area surrounding the mine had been plagued by violence perpetrated by an ISIS affiliate, forcing the mine’s operator to suspend use of the mine’s primary access route. If the idea was to shift away from reliance on China to ensure security, Mozambique flunked the risk test.

Confirmation came last December, when protests and civil unrest in Mozambique forced the mine operator to cease operations. A predictable return of the strife that had occurred before the Biden administration ever issued the loans resulted in the company defaulting on the $150 million the federal government had lent it. 

Fortunately, a better solution has been sitting under Washington’s nose all along. The Graphite Creek Project, located north of Nome in Alaska, contains a massive supply of this important mineral—one not vulnerable to geopolitical instability. A new geological estimate updating the area’s likely resources found that the project contains enough graphite to meet the nation’s entire projected demand for the next 100 years.

Of course, developing American resources means the mining jobs associated with this project will benefit Alaska’s economy, not Mozambique’s. The developer is also working to develop a graphite anode plant in Ohio, which will benefit the American economy, keep processing within the United States, and erode China’s dominant position in the graphite processing industry.

While the last administration decided to look overseas to diversify the world’s graphite supply, the best solution would be to focus on developing American natural resources—and American graphite manufacturing—right here at home. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order recognizing that Alaska “holds an abundant and largely untapped supply of natural resources” that “will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation’s economic and national security for generations to come.” I wholeheartedly agree, and hope that the president and his administration will recognize that graphite presents yet another opportunity where Alaska can help make America great again.

Mike Dunleavy is the Governor of Alaska.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.