'Project Vault': Trump's Latest 'Manhattan Project' in The Race with China for 21st Century Leadership
by Lawrence Kadish • February 10, 2026 at 4:00 am
President Donald Trump is taking an important page from World War II's Manhattan Project, when the United States raced to secure supplies of the rare element uranium needed to create the war-winning atomic bomb. When strategic amounts of the element were found in Africa, deep in mines in the Belgian Congo, a "cover" entity called the Combined Development Trust was created by the U.S. to purchase all supplies and thereby deny Nazi Germany access to the coveted uranium.
The 21st Century has changed the concept of the types and amounts of strategic minerals that will be required to protect the nation's future --and few recognize that need more acutely than Trump.
Today the strategic minerals needed are "rare earths," and Trump is about to launch a strategic stockpile campaign to ensure our national economy is not held hostage by China, which has significant deposits of these vital resources.
