President Donald Trump’s escalating rhetoric on seizing Greenland and reigniting a trade war with Europe is creating anxiety worldwide, but it’s also drawing attention to New York-based Critical Metals and its massive rare earths mining project near the southern tip of the world’s largest island.
Critical Metals, which is developing the Tanbreez rare earths project, has seen its stock spike nearly 150% since the beginning of the year—and more than 280% in six months. It now has a market cap of over $2 billion.
Critical Metals CEO Tony Sage said his company is working amidst the madness to maintain strong relationships with the Trump administration, the E.U., and the local Greenland government without choosing sides. Ideally, he said, Greenland would win its independence from Denmark while strengthening business and military ties with the U.S.—but without being annexed by Trump.
“We’re being distracted, obviously, by all the media that’s going on at the moment,” Sage told Fortune in a Jan. 20 interview.
“In one way, it’s good, because obviously a lot of people now are realizing how big Tanbreez is and how important it is strategically for the U.S. But it’s bad that it creates uncertainty with the local people. You’ve seen the protests about what’s happening,” Sage said. “There is a little trepidation in Greenland with our local partners and our staff. It’s not causing us any delays right now but, if things escalate, that might cause us some delays.
“We don’t want to be used as a political football,” he added.
Many thousands have rallied and protested within Greenland and in Denmark, chanting, “Greenland is not for sale.” Trump is demanding to buy Greenland—with costs estimated up to $700 billion—or take it by force, and he’s enacting new tariffs on Denmark and the rest of the E.U. to create leverage. The president cites national security concerns—despite existing approvals to expand militarily—and the potentially rich natural resources on the icy, largely barren territory.
“An independent Greenland, but with a heavy U.S. defense presence, would be the ideal situation,” Sage said, citing a potential referendum for Greenland independence from Denmark. “I don’t know whether that’s going to happen, but I think that’s the best of both worlds.”
The Tanbreez project has also gained notoriety as the U.S. seeks to strengthen its domestic and international supply chains for rare earths mining and processing for the soft metals used to make everything from military weapons to vehicles to computing equipment and data centers. China controls much of the global supply chains, including a near monopoly on much of the rare earths refining.
“We’re all hands on deck,” Sage said. “We’re going 100 miles an hour doing what we do and just ignoring the political stuff for now.”
Inside the Tanbreez project
Australian geologist Greg Barnes, who founded the Tanbreez project, was among the first to tout Greenland to Trump when they met in 2019 at the White House.
Last year, Critical Metals increased its stake in Tanbreez and now owns 92.5% of it. Pre-construction activities and a pilot project are getting underway, although full construction isn’t expected to begin until spring 2027 with completion slated for late 2028.
Sage touts Tanbreez’s potential not only for its high concentration of rare earths, but also for its larger percentage of the rarer, heavy rare earths, especially terbium and dysprosium, and other valued rare earths, such as hafnium, gallium, and niobium. (Most rare earths aren’t rare; they’re just hard to find in high concentrations that are economically feasible to extract.)
Tanbreez theoretically offers easier access via an open pit—it’s not underground—and the rarer critical minerals that China can’t easily dump on the market at low prices to tank the competition, Sage said.
The goal is to mine close to nearly 1 million metric tons of ore per year, Sage said, and the mine has enough deposits to maintain that pace for more than a century.
“I don’t think people understand the gravity,” Sage said. “Within three years, we’ll reduce China’s heavy rare earths supply [control] from 97% to about 50%.”
