The White House built a 12 billion dollar critical minerals reserve, more than 13 times bigger than the stockpile it sits beside

A 12 billion dollar critical minerals reserve, financed as a loan, not stockpiled as metal

In February 2026, the White House launched Project Vault, a 12 billion dollar critical minerals reserve built around a loan rather than a stockpile of metal in a warehouse. Critical minerals are materials such as rare earth elements, cobalt and lithium that batteries, magnets and defense systems need, and that the United States mostly imports. Instead of a government agency buying and storing the material itself, manufacturers pay upfront fees to lock in fixed metal prices, commodity traders pay separate participation fees to supply and store the material, and a federal loan backs the whole structure. The reserve responds to a 93% figure, the share of rare earth elements and graphite the United States imported in 2024 rather than produced at home.

A 10 billion dollar loan called the biggest in Export Import Bank history

The Export Import Bank of the United States, a federal agency that backs loans for American exporters, is lending up to 10 billion dollars directly into Project Vault, which the agency chairman named the largest transaction in its own history. Alongside that loan sits 1.67 billion dollars of private and institutional money, paid in through the same upfront and participation fees, though every account that names a total for the program calls it 12 billion dollars, a gap neither figure explains. The Export Import Bank confirmed directly, in a release the agency published in February 2026, that it is working with other federal agencies on both Project Vault and the broader Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve. Manufacturers named as participants include Clarios, GE Vernova, Western Digital and Boeing, and the commodity suppliers named are Hartree Partners, Mercuria Americas and Traxys.

Anthony Huston, chief executive officer of Graphite One, a graphite and battery materials company, said the reserve changes what a shortage means for buyers.

Project Vault will ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage.

Anthony Huston, chief executive officer of Graphite One, a graphite and battery materials company. Source 1.

The National Defense Stockpile, the reserve Project Vault now dwarfs

The United States already had a stockpile of strategic materials, the National Defense Stockpile, created in 1939 and managed by the Defense Logistics Agency since 1988. That older stockpile holds close to 1.3 billion dollars in total assets, but a 2023 assessment found only 912.3 million dollars worth of material actually stored. Project Vault, at 12 billion dollars, is more than 13 times that 912.3 million dollar figure, a comparison built here across 2 separate accounts, not a number either program states on its own.

Congress separately added 2 billion dollars to the stockpile Transaction Fund this year, on top of a 958 million dollar balance the fund held before that addition. The Defense Logistics Agency set a 1 billion dollar target for 2025 purchases of critical minerals, including 500 million dollars for cobalt, 245 million dollars for antimony, 100 million dollars for tantalum and 45 million dollars for scandium.