President Donald Trump has signed an executive order tightening U.S. defense-supply rules for critical materials, creating a potential strategic tailwind for Greenland’s Tanbreez rare earth project.
January 2027 Reaches Further Upstream
January 1, 2027 marks two connected changes in U.S. defense procurement.
On that date, Trump’s executive order sharply restricts waivers allowing Pentagon contractors to use covered materials from China and other prohibited countries.
The same day, an already-enacted expansion of 10 U.S.C. §4872 takes effect. The law will prohibit contracts for covered materials “mined, refined, or separated” in a covered nation, extending existing restrictions focused on where materials were melted, produced or manufactured.
For rare-earth supply chains, the inclusion of “separated” is particularly significant because China dominates this complex processing stage. The expanded prohibition looks beyond the final processing country to where a covered material was mined, refined or separated, closing a potential route for disguising Chinese origin through third-country processing.
A useful parallel comes from the honey trade, where Chinese honey has been routed through intermediary countries and sometimes heavily filtered, removing pollen that can help establish its geographical origin.
That is the clearest opening for Tanbreez. Its strategic value is not simply that the deposit is located in allied territory, but that it could supply U.S. and allied processing and magnet-manufacturing networks without relying on Chinese mining or separation.
Why Tanbreez Stands Out
Tanbreez contains dysprosium and terbium, heavy rare earths used to improve the performance of permanent magnets in defense and other advanced applications.
Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Denmark is formally listed as a qualifying country under U.S. defense procurement rules.
Section 6 contains two safeguards particularly relevant to foreign critical-mineral projects. The first states that the order must not impair purchases from foreign projects financed, guaranteed or insured by the U.S. Export-Import Bank or Development Finance Corporation. The second extends similar protection to materials produced by companies or projects receiving grants, financing, loans, equity investment or other support from the Departments of State, War, Commerce or Energy.
Critical Metals Corp (Nasdaq: CRML) received a non-binding EXIM letter of interest in June 2025 contemplating up to $120 million in financing for Tanbreez. The EXIM proposal aligns Tanbreez directly with the first safeguard. A final financing agreement would appear to bring material produced by the project within Section 6’s express protection.
Tanbreez also has a binding 15-year agreement to supply 15% of its annual rare earth concentrate production to U.S.-based REalloys, with priority rights over material rich in dysprosium and terbium. A separate, non-binding arrangement envisages supplying Ucore’s Pentagon-supported Louisiana processing facility. Rare-earth products from that facility could benefit from Section 6’s second safeguard because Ucore has received Pentagon funding.
Both ends of a future Tanbreez–Ucore supply chain could therefore align with Section 6: prospective EXIM support at the mine and Pentagon support at the processor. That outcome depends on EXIM converting its letter of interest into an approved financing agreement and the parties completing their Ucore supply agreement.
Greenland Resources’ Malmbjerg project has a secondary connection because molybdenum is also covered by 10 U.S.C. §4872. However, Malmbjerg remains primarily oriented toward European processing and customers.
January 1, 2027 could mark a decisive shift in the strategic value of projects such as Tanbreez. By forcing defense contractors to trace materials upstream and move away from Chinese mining and separation, Washington is creating precisely the kind of allied mine-to-magnet supply chain that Tanbreez is being developed to serve.
GreenlandEnergy.com provides independent analysis of Greenland’s energy landscape, critical minerals development, and Arctic geopolitics. For corrections or feedback: press@greenlandenergy.com
