Late last year, Reuters reported that the U.S. Defense Department plans to fund mining and processing operations for rare earth elements—a class of minerals for which China dominates the global market, producing over 80 percent of the world’s supply. In the past, China has restricted exports of rare earths, and recently threatened to do so again. Even with a phase one trade deal hammered out between the United States and China, natural resources are likely to remain a point of geopolitical tension.

Rare earths elements are just one of the resources critical to modern economies. Amid a changing climate and rapidly evolving technological landscape, competition is forming around access to key resources that will be fundamental to the security and prosperity of both countries.

To provide a reference point for understanding U.S. and Chinese trade and natural resource relationships—including which are likely to be more or less essential in the coming decades—New America’s Resource Security Program developed the Natural Security Index. Overall, the Index suggests that climate change and natural resources will shape the competition for geopolitical influence and investments—and that competition will, in turn, shape global resource security.

Competition for Resources is Already Underway

In an early November press release, the U.S. State Department notified the public that Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources, Francis Fannon, and Australian Ambassador to the United States, Joe Hockey, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on energy mineral resources. Meanwhile, China is bullishly acquiring mines and building processing facilities to boost Australia’s output capacity for the same energy mineral resources. U.S.-China competition is materializing over key resource suppliers, and Australia is far from the only case.

Australia is among the top countries that the United States and China rely on for resources, along with Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and each other. These major resource suppliers are at the forefront of great power competition, particularly as China and the United States compete for the commanding heights of frontier technologies that require critical minerals. As many of these resources are highly concentrated in production, access to these markets is essential. Resource needs are increasingly driving foreign policies, whether its investments in other countries refining and processing capacities or outright purchasing their agricultural land.

China’s International Strategy is More Coordinated than that of the U.S.

China has significant natural resources, including agriculture and critical minerals, but not enough to meet the demands of its 1.3 billion population. Forced to import select agricultural products, like soybeans, the Chinese government meets this challenge with a diversified, centrally-controlled global trade and investment strategy. According to the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker, for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the world’s largest producer of cobalt) and Australia and Chile (leading producers of lithium) rank among the top four destinations for China’s investment in the metals sector. Our research finds that where China makes national power investments through diplomacy, economic engagement, and military cooperation, is generally consistent with where it has strategic resource relationships.

The United States, on the other hand, has inherent natural security—an advantage in global great power competition—and its global natural resource engagement is driven largely by private sector and market forces. U.S. national power investments sometimes coincide with key resource trade partners, but not always. This could put the United States at a disadvantage in securing resource supply chains for important industries.

Climate Change Could Undermine U.S. and Chinese Agricultural Security

In our hyper-connected world, cheap commodities flow across borders, allowing nations around the globe to rely on others to meet their food needs, but at the same time, creating new vulnerabilities. To better understand how agricultural trades may shift in a changing climate, we evaluated two climate scenarios, one optimistic and one pessimistic.

Under the optimistic scenario, agriculture in the south and west of the U.S. may suffer, but with few competing pressures for land, the country can remain a major agricultural producer. If climate change impacts are more intense and water and heat stress limit productivity, U.S. farmers may no longer be able to produce a large export surplus. In both scenarios, Russia and Canada are likely to rise as key agricultural exporters.

For China, the economics of land and trade are likely to mean greater imports under both scenarios, but with more urgency in the pessimistic scenario. While China currently grows enough corn, wheat, and rice to satisfy domestic consumption, climate change is likely to change this, especially for corn and wheat. Already, China is increasingly looking outward for agriculture. Soy producing giants such as Brazil and Argentina are likely to become more important suppliers in the short term as demand increases, especially if tariffs continue to hamper U.S.-China trade.

Redefining Security for a Competitive Environment

The future of the world’s natural resource landscape will in large part depend on the fate of the U.S.-China relationship. If the two countries seek to disentangle their mutual dependence, it will result in major shifts in global supply chains and significant impacts on domestic industries. At the same time, climate change will increasingly be a strategic driver when it comes to natural security, something China appears to be positioning for as it aligns its trade, investment, and national engagement strategy in key resource-rich countries across the world. The United States, on the other hand, appears to have no deliberate strategy when it comes to ensuring natural security in a changing climate.

Aligning national power investments with resource requirements is one way to safeguard America’s natural security in this era of rapid climate change and resurgent geopolitical competition. The U.S.-Australia MoU for critical energy minerals is an example of such an investment, but the U.S. government could do more to create an overarching policy framework that integrates America’s resource needs with its geopolitical investments while leveraging the country’s immense domestic resource base in a manner that is ecologically responsible.