For nearly 40 years, the United States lived under OPEC’s thumb.
From 1970 until 2008, U.S. oil production followed a single, depressing trajectory — down.
Like clockwork, every year our crude inched lower. And every barrel we lost in this seemingly irreversible decline, we drove ourselves deeper into the pockets of OPEC.
Then it happened, a miracle that helped us break those oil changes.
All it took was a quiet Texas wildcatter in the 1980s to change the course of our history forever.
A man named George Mitchell was experimenting with the idea of using horizontal drilling techniques with hydraulic fracturing.
By 2008, U.S. oil companies finally unlocked an ocean of crude oil that was previously locked in tight rock formations far below the surface.
Today, those tight oil plays are household names, and areas like the Bakken, the Eagle Ford, and the deeper tight rock formations of the Permian Basin are the backbone of U.S. oil output.
Over the last 17 years, U.S. domestic oil production experienced unprecedented growth, surging from 5 million barrels to more than 13.8 million barrels per day today.
I’ll give you three guesses what happened to those OPEC chains that grew for decades, but you’ll only need one — our crude oil imports from OPEC nations have collapsed by more than 80%.
Breaking those oil shackles were perhaps the most significant strategic events for the U.S. in the 21st century.
However, soon there may be a contender to take that title.
Trump’s New Mining Push: Evidence the Shift Has Already Begun
Today, another chain is waiting to be broken… except this time, the stakes are even higher.
Why? Well, it’s because of our dangerous dependence on China for critical minerals. This is OPEC's problem all over again — only worse.
You see, critical minerals aren’t just inputs for consumer technology, they’re the building blocks for national power.
They run through everything from advanced batteries, missiles, semiconductors, EV motors, solar panels, and every tool of the automation and AI revolutions now reshaping the global economy.
Without these minerals, the U.S. military can’t modernize, the grid can’t expand, and next-generation industries simply stall.
And right now, China controls or heavily influences more than 70% of global processing capacity for many of these minerals — in some areas, it’s closer to 90%.
For a country betting its future on AI-driven military dominance and advanced manufacturing, that’s not an inconvenience — it’s a national-security crisis.
Just as we once depended on OPEC, we now depend on Beijing.
The question is whether America can pull off another tight-oil moment — a coordinated push that rewrites our vulnerabilities and returns critical industries to U.S. soil.
And THAT, dear reader, is the exact transformation now underway.
The reason why is because the most important story in U.S. industry has nothing to do with Wall Street indices, earnings reports, or whatever tech stocks are doing before the close.
It’s happening in the rocks beneath our feet, with President Trump slowly reengineering the way the U.S. sources mineral supply.
The recent Mine the Future initiative out of the Department of Energy is a sweeping effort launched to bolster domestic mining capacity and accelerate the development of U.S. mineral resources.
They’re rolling out new investments, partnerships, and new pathways for U.S. companies to commercialize the materials the country needs for defense, energy, and high-tech manufacturing.
For the record, that’s $355 million in new funding opportunities, with 77% of that spending directed specifically toward pilot projects that recover critical materials from coal-based resources and other industrial byproducts.
Look, there’s a reason why President Trump formally expanded the U.S. critical-minerals list to include ten new entries, ranging from copper to metallurgical coal to silicon.
He’s preparing to ramp-up our domestic supply of critical minerals, and he’s willing to prioritize development, reduce permitting times, and focus policy to ensure U.S. mining companies are successful.
Those U.S. miners are the key to securing those metals that are so crucial to national security.
That’s how the shale revolution started… from the small, independent drillers that knew the wealth they were sitting on.
It was just a matter of unlocking it.
And as usual, the smart money made fortunes long before the mainstream realized what was happening.
The Quiet Winners In Trump’s Mining Boom
Every time Washington tries steering an industrial transition, the headlines focus on the obvious winners.
In the case of critical minerals, that spotlight shined brightest on MP Materials (NYSE: MP) — the rare-earth producer directly tied to federal policy.
It’s the poster child for “American critical-minerals momentum,” and it stands to benefit from any expansion of domestic mining.
But here’s the hard lesson from the shale boom:
The biggest returns rarely come from the companies already blessed by the front-page spotlight – and rarely does it come from the biggest companies.
During the early days of the shale boom, it wasn’t Exxon that produced the 10x and 20x returns.
Truth is, it was the smaller operators — the ones grabbing acreage, testing new completions, drilling experimental wells, and proving up reserves the market still thought were worthless.
That’s the setup today.
Because while the administration’s policy direction points toward a broad critical-minerals renaissance, the true profit engine sits in the lesser-known domestic miners now advancing U.S. assets before the rest of the market notices (Here’s a perfect example).
These companies aren’t running ads, nor are they taking up airtime on CNBC or the subject of weekly op-eds.
Those miners are doing what the early shale pioneers did — acquiring land, calculating resource potential, developing projects, and positioning themselves to benefit from billions of dollars in federal support.
And their advantage is timing.
Oh, those companies do exist.
In fact, they’re operating right now, and the smart money has been positioning itself all year in anticipation for President Trump’s next major push to bolster the United States’ mining sector.
A decade from now, we won’t be talking about OPEC or Beijing.
We’ll be talking about how the U.S. rewrote the supply-chain map, and which early investors recognized the shift before anyone else — here’s what they’re buying today.
Until next time,
Keith Kohl
Check us out on YouTube!A true insider in the technology and energy markets, Keith’s research has helped everyday investors capitalize from the rapid adoption of new technology trends and energy transitions. Keith connects with hundreds of thousands of readers as the Managing Editor of Energy & Capital, as well as the investment director of Angel Publishing’s Energy Investor and Technology and Opportunity.
For nearly two decades, Keith has been providing in-depth coverage of the hottest investment trends before they go mainstream — from the shale oil and gas boom in the United States to the red-hot EV revolution currently underway. Keith and his readers have banked hundreds of winning trades on the 5G rollout and on key advancements in robotics and AI technology.
Keith’s keen trading acumen and investment research also extend all the way into the complex biotech sector, where he and his readers take advantage of the newest and most groundbreaking medical therapies being developed by nearly 1,000 biotech companies. His network includes hundreds of experts, from M.D.s and Ph.D.s to lab scientists grinding out the latest medical technology and treatments. You can join his vast investment community and target the most profitable biotech stocks in Keith’s Topline Trader advisory newsletter.
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