What rare earth mineral promises has Matua Shane Jones given Trump?

What is being negotiated?

On February 2, 2026, Luxon referred to media reports about a deal as “frothy” and “speculative,” stating that such discussions were “ahead of where Cabinet is”.

Well, maybe Luxon wasn’t aware of where Cabinet was because his Cabinet was already cutting deals with Trump!

NZ in talks with US on Trump minerals deal

The Government is negotiating with the US to provide access to our critical minerals, while a memo before the Waitangi Tribunal says a backdoor deal violates obligations to Māori

NewsRoom

Why Shane Jones is central to the deal

Matua Shane Jones, the Great War Wah of the North.

A man so egotistical that he talks to Shane Jones in the 3rd person because there’s so much self regard to go around.

A Climate Denying Culture War Boomer who gets banned from Christmas lunch.

The mouthpiece for polluters…

…a  Minister so compromised with donors interests he can’t separate himself from them.

He was pimping for rare earth minerals back in 2024...

A track record on mining

• Heavy mineral sands in the waters off the Bay of Plenty and West Coast
• Antimony and gold in Reefton
• Rare earths in the waters off the West Coast
• Lithium in Northland and Waikato
• Hydrogen in Waikato, Tasman and Southland
• Vanadium and titanium in the waters off Taranaki
• Potash in Canterbury and Otago
• Rare earth and phosphate mining in the Chatham Rise

…now he has the ear of Trump who wants to cut deals everywhere as a national security issue for them.

My question is this, why would anyone trust someone with the Track Record of capture like Shane Jones anywhere near this deal?

Shane Jones is incapable of having a good faith debate on mining because he’s turned it into a culture war fight.

His pettiness and desperate need for political relevance is tedious and beneath the mana of the debate.

On a burning planet thanks to fossil fuels, can Shane Jones be any more offensive?

Couple of things here.

1 – He went to Singapore and told the oil and gas pimps there that he will open all of NZ up for mining and gas exploration, not just the areas which have been designated for oil and gas exploration, which is a policy change he didn’t even tell NZers about

2 – Shane Jones will desecrate our environment for a pathetic 2%

3 – His claim that we are importing Indonesian dirty coal because limp writes greenies keep wanting flower power has already been debunked…

Is NZ bringing in ‘Indonesian coal every month to keep the lights on’?

Burning less coal to make electricity helped New Zealand achieve its biggest official annual drop in planet-heating gases since records started in 1990.

The same week those figures came out, Resources Minister Shane Jones told Morning Report New Zealand should develop more of its own coal, rather than importing “dirty” coal from Indonesia.

Jones earlier told Parliament that opposition MPs turned a blind eye while New Zealand imported Indonesian coal “every month, to keep the lights on.”

While it’s true Genesis Energy – owner of the country’s only coal-fired station – burns coal to run its Huntly generators, it last year reported that its last shipment of coal had arrived in July 2022.

At that point, it had no plans to import more. It also has a local supply, near Huntly.

Although it’s a stretch to say Genesis imports coal monthly, the company recently warned its gas supply was falling faster than expected, which could mean more coal use.

Conflicts, donors and fast-tracking

4 – Let’s not forget Shane Jones has fast tracked mining proposals while also receiving donations from those mining companies so what he has to say on the issue is horrifically compromised.

Look.

If we are going to have an adult conversation about mining in NZ, let’s have an actual adult conversation, because all Shane Jones seems to be capable of is turning it into a culture war where he’s attacking woke frogs and lazy nephs on the couch.

Fitch Ratings analysts warned NZ last year that the next 10 years of economic growth was dangerously stunted.

This matters because it is ratings analysts like Fitch who warn the market if we are good for all the money we borrowed.

They base that on future projections of our economic cycle and their analysis is terrible.

The economic dead end

Fitch have made clear to us that Dairy, Tourism and exports to China have waned and can not grow beyond the manner in which we have already grown them…

He told BusinessDesk that Fitch sees the drivers of growth in the decade before Covid as having “run their course”.

In other words dairy, tourism and China export growth – while continuing to be large and core components of New Zealand’s economy – can’t possibly continue on the same dramatic growth curve they did before.

…John Key’s, ‘All our cows in one Beijing paddock’ has not only been geopolitically dangerous, it’s also run its economic course.

So what now?

This Government seem to think mining, gas and oil exploration alongside weakening regulations for donors will unlock NZs next economic cycle but it can’t and won’t…

The idea that we’ll mine our way to prosperity is one of those. It may well be an industry worth promoting, but betting the house (or more specifically our clean green reputation) on it being transformational is just silly.

We mined the big accessible gold deposits in 19th and 20th centuries. The odds of finding valuable rare metals like lithium are very low. It would be great if we did but if that’s this Government’s strategy, they might as well buy Lotto tickets.

Striking oil is also a long shot and the time frames involved to find it and get it out of the ground take us well past 2030 – the date by which the International Energy Agency has forecast the world will face  a  “staggering” glut.

If Kiwis ever wanted to be a rich oil-producing nation (and a large percentage don’t) we’ve missed that boat.

…if we are to play to our advantages, we need to play to the one that will provide the most impact to all of us.

What actually is New Zealand’s advantage?

Cheap, 100% renewable electricity!

This needs to be our focus and if Sam Stubbs ideas can generate this outcome they are worth looking at…

When we look at what gave New Zealand a competitive advantage in the 20th, cheap electric power is near the top of the list.

The dairy industry was built on the ability to turn liquid milk into powder more efficiently than our competitors.

The next wave of global economic growth will involve electricity and lots of it.

Artificial intelligence is incredibly power-hungry. One Chat-GPT search uses 10 times the power of a Google search.

Throw electrical vehicles on top of that and it becomes obvious – only countries with access to a cheap, stable power supply will have a competitive advantage in the years ahead.

There has been plenty of talk about the potential for New Zealand to be a world leader in data centres. To do that we’ll need more and ideally cheaper power.

Collectively, data centres will consume about 200 megawatts (MW) of electricity at peak usage – roughly the amount required to power some 200,000 homes. The average demand in Auckland is about 1700MW. That has been forecast to rise to 500MW of consumption over the next five years based on current plans.

A different path forward

• Solar panels on every public building.
• Local wind turbine generation.
• Community sharing.
• Windfarms.
• Electric public transport.
• More Hydro.
• Tidal generation investment.

This needs to be our way forward. Not more Dairy and more cheap basic exports to China and Tourism.

Cheap sustainable electricity is our competitive edge, we need to urgently focus on that now!

Shane is in the pocket of Mining, he is gaining Fast Track Power for his donors, not for NZ.

We need better ideas than the ones currently being pushed.