Dominican Republic, U.S. discuss rare earths development; preliminary estimate cited at about 100 million tons gross

President Luis Abinader and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the potential of rare earth elements in the Dominican Republic and U.S. technical support to evaluate and develop those resources.

Abinader called rare earths “a resource that has great potential for the Dominican Republic” and said the government has created “a public company, a state company, to be able to exploit these rare earth elements.” He said development offers opportunities for growth, investment and modernization.

Secretary Rubio said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has worked with Dominican authorities to identify rare earth deposits and that the U.S. was “not ready to announce anything official at this point, but we will discuss the opportunity.” On reserves he said, “We have gross reserves, then we will see what the net reserves are. But the gross reserves are of about 100,000,000 tons. That is significant.” Rubio described the figure as preliminary and said more precise numbers would come in “about 2, 3 months.”

Both officials framed the minerals as belonging to the Dominican Republic while highlighting the U.S. interest in sourcing critical materials from allied countries. Rubio said development could support sectors such as semiconductors and defense-related technologies and that the U.S. would consider partnership opportunities while leaving ownership with the Dominican people.

The press conference did not include technical reports or published assays; officials described the estimate as preliminary and did not provide a detailed timeline for commercial development, environmental review or regulatory approvals.