Here's the thing about mineral dominance that most people miss: it's not really about who digs stuff out of the ground. It's about who processes it afterwards. And on that front, China isn't just winning—it's playing a different game entirely.

The U.S. imports about 60% of the copper it uses, which is starting to look like a problem as demand explodes across electrification, AI data centers, and defense systems. But according to John Shively, CEO of Alaska's Pebble Mine (the largest undeveloped copper deposit in America), the real issue isn't where the ore comes from. It's what happens next.

Processing Is Where the Power Lives

In an exclusive interview with MarketDash, Shively made it clear that China is "light years ahead" of the United States. Not because they're better at mining, but because they made deliberate, strategic decisions to lock down every stage of the mineral supply chain. "They have control over the metal that is the end product," Shively explained. That's the part that matters.

Meanwhile, U.S. processing capacity remains embarrassingly thin. So even if American companies pull copper out of American ground, there's a decent chance it's getting refined somewhere else—probably Asia—before it comes back as usable metal. That's not a supply chain. That's a dependency.

Shively warns that U.S. copper reliance will "only increase if we don't allow prospects like Pebble to proceed." And he's talking about a structural problem, not a temporary blip.

What This Means for Copper Investors

For anyone tracking major producers like Freeport-McMoRan Inc (FCX) or Southern Copper Corp (SCCO), this matters. Long-term output and margin visibility don't just hinge on how much copper is in the ground. They depend on downstream infrastructure, processing capacity, and whether policymakers actually care about any of this.

Shively described Pebble as "the most significant undeveloped mineral prospect in the United States," especially now that copper has been added to the U.S. critical minerals list. Policymakers are starting to notice that copper isn't optional anymore—it's strategic. The question is whether recognition turns into action.

Investors looking for broader sector exposure have been eyeing vehicles like the Global X Copper Miners ETF (COPX), which captures how regulatory shifts and supply chain developments ripple across the entire industry, not just individual mines.

Regulatory Fog and Capital Flight

Shively pointed to regulatory uncertainty as a persistent drag on capital allocation. Past EPA actions, he said, have "repeatedly been identified by surveys of major mining companies as a barrier to investment in the U.S." Translation: big mining companies don't want to sink billions into long-cycle projects when the rules might change halfway through.

Removing that uncertainty would unlock more than just one project. As Shively put it, "China clearly knows the critical role copper will continue to play in the future." Then he added the uncomfortable question: "Will the U.S. understand it too?"

Right now, the answer isn't obvious. But the gap between understanding and action is where strategic advantages get built—or lost.