New mercantilism: A perspective on how politics is shaping world metal supply

• Mineral consuming countries are no longer the major mineral producing countries.
• Mineral producers are becoming more focused on how minerals can be used to leverage their development than on supplying cheap raw materials.
• This shift in focus is manifest in resource nationalism and in the adoption of policies by consuming countries like China to secure their supplies
• These changes are re-shaping the patterns of mineral supply and creating a challenging environment for global investors in mining.

The major countries consuming metals tended historically to be also the major countries producing them. It was in their interest to promote mine development to provide low cost raw materials. Over the past fifty years, the share of global production accounted for by consuming countries has declined and producers and consumers of metals have been slowly moving into separate camps having distinct and differing interests. As a consequence of this, governments of producing countries have become more focused on how to maximise the benefit of metal extraction to their economies rather than on how to supply cheap raw materials; a tendency which has found expression in resource nationalism. Governments of consuming countries have in response become increasingly concerned about the implications of this tendency to their economic development and some countries, most notably China, have adopted robust policies to secure their supplies. Through their actions to influence capital flows within the mining industry and to force metals trade into channels which better serve their national interests (a process characterised here as ‘new mercantilism’), metal producing and metal consuming countries are reshaping global supply.