China may soon try to exploit Afghanistan's rare minerals worth up to $3 trillion, says US

Since Afghanistan went into the hands of the Taliban after its government collapsed, China is now preparing to make profits out of Afghanistan's rare minerals. As reported by ANI, news agency Sputnik has said that China will be soon moving to Afghanistan for mining rare earth minerals. 

Confirming the same, US House Foreign Affairs Committee Representative Michael McCaul said, "I don't know why we didn't work with the Afghans to develop that, but we never did. And now, you're going to have China going in mining these rare earth minerals." With this, China will now become the winner and the United States will end up as a loser just like the Afghan citizens. Along with that, the Taliban will be also earning a huge amount of profit from China and they will use this for the terrorist funding, he added. 

Afghanistan's rare minerals

Afghanistan is known for having a rich resource of rare minerals which is now at the hands of the Taliban and can be easily exploited. In such a situation, it is estimated that China may soon join hands with Afghanistan to mine their earth minerals. Ever since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, China has been in contact with the Afghan Taliban and is looking forward to maintaining a 'friendly cooperation' with the country.

Earlier in 2007, former US President Donald Trump agreed with the government to develop Afghanistan's earth minerals.As per media reports, Afghanistan has some rare earth minerals including cerium, neodymium, lanthanum, gold, silver, aluminium, mercury, zinc, and lithium. Minerals and rare earth metals in Afghanistan were estimated to be worth between $1 trillion and $3 trillion (Rs 7,000 crore-21,000 crore) in 2020, according to a US research publication.

Afghanistan is currently facing a worst-case scenario with the terrorist group taking over the country and President Ashraf Ghani fleeing away. Taliban is controlling the whole country along with the resources. 

(Image Credits: AP)