As the Chinese Communist Party has cracked down again on the export of rare-earth minerals essential for so much of modern technology, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorganChase, announced a huge private-sector investment in infrastructure in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
“The brutal invasion of Ukraine, the indescribable terrorist attack on Israel and other major conflicts should dispel any illusion that the world is safe,” he wrote. “The U.S. has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing — all of which are essential for our national security.
China controls roughly 70 percent of the world’s rare-earth minerals.
Dimon said America needs more “speed and investment” and the removal of roadblocks such as “excessive regulation, bureaucratic delay, partisan gridlock and an education system misaligned with the skills we need.”
“That is why JPMorganChase is launching the Security and Resiliency Initiative, a 10-year, $1.5 trillion effort to facilitate, finance and invest in industries crucial to national security and economic resilience, from critical medications and minerals to military equipment and semiconductors,” Dimon wrote. ‘This will also help create economic growth, innovation and jobs in America. It will include direct equity investments of up to $10 billion of our own capital in select companies. This effort will cut across investment banking, middle-market banking and commercial banking. It will include special research on private industries and important issues like supply-chain weaknesses on rare-earth metals. It will also include trying to design policies that can accelerate these efforts, including training, research and development, permitting, and regulations conducive to growth.”
Dimon said policy “will be essential.”
“America needs a permitting process measured in months, not years. Vocational and apprenticeship programs must be expanded to close the manufacturing skills gap,” he wrote. “And we must create consistent long-term incentives for private investment in these critical industries so that more capital is available. Fortunately, bipartisan legislation has begun to modernize procurement and streamline industrial policy, and new federal initiatives are encouraging domestic production of chips and critical medications.”
Vance Ginn, former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget during the first Trump administration and senior fellow at the Kansas Policy Institute, which owns the Sentinel, was pleased by Dimon’s focus on private-sector investment and warned against government picking winners and losers.
“Jamie Dimon is right that America’s security depends on a strong, resilient economy—but that strength comes from free enterprise, not government direction,” Ginn said. “We should absolutely invest in innovation and supply-chain resilience, but picking winners and losers through subsidies or industrial policy only weakens competition. The private sector, guided by open markets and consumer choice, allocates resources far better than bureaucrats ever can. Government’s role should be to protect property rights and remove barriers so entrepreneurs — not politicians — can drive America’s security and prosperity.”
Dimon said the bank will focus on four primary areas:
- Supply chains and advanced manufacturing to strengthen the production of critical materials, pharmaceutical precursors, robotics and components such as semiconductors and rare-earth elements.
- Defense and aerospace to support innovation and scale production for modern deterrence, including drones, autonomous systems and next-gen connectivity.
- Energy independence and resilience to modernize the U.S. grid and invest in reliable clean power like battery storage to meet surging demand.
- Frontier and strategic technologies to accelerate breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and quantum computing.
