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It’s back to school for colleges across the United States, and if U.S. President Donald Trump has it his way, more and more students will be studying to transform the country into a critical minerals superpower.

The depleted state of the U.S. mining workforce has been a thorn in the side of the Trump administration’s ambitions, with more than half of the current mining workforce—or around 221,000 workers—estimated to retire by 2029, according to the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME), a professional association based in Colorado.

It’s back to school for colleges across the United States, and if U.S. President Donald Trump has it his way, more and more students will be studying to transform the country into a critical minerals superpower.

The depleted state of the U.S. mining workforce has been a thorn in the side of the Trump administration’s ambitions, with more than half of the current mining workforce—or around 221,000 workers—estimated to retire by 2029, according to the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME), a professional association based in Colorado.

Analysts have warned that the United States does not have the people to power a mining renaissance, as years of largely outsourcing the industry overseas have left the country with an aging workforce that isn’t equipped to contend with Chinese competitors.

“It’s like all of a sudden, if you told me that we’ve got to set up a cricket league that’s got to compete against India and Pakistan next year,” said David Abraham, a rare-earths expert and author of The Elements of Power. “It’s a huge challenge.”

In August, the Trump administration unveiled plans to pump some $180 million into U.S. mining schools, with the goal of turbocharging talent pipelines and doubling their number of graduates within the next two years. And at the forefront of that effort are mining engineers, who oversee the lifecycle of mines and can take on careers in areas ranging from mine design and safety to environmental specialties.

The United States is currently home to 14 mining schools, down from 25 in the 1980s. Those schools collectively graduate between 150 and 200 mining engineers a year, which doesn’t even meet the current demand for graduates, said Aaron Noble, the head of the mining and minerals engineering department at Virginia Tech.

That number also pales in comparison to the mining graduates that China boasts—a gap that Trump himself pointed to when announcing the administration’s newest........

© Foreign Policy