Louisiana state Rep. Julie Emerson announced on Thursday that she was nixing her U.S. Senate bid in light of President Donald Trump-backed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow entering the GOP primary.
‘With Congresswoman Letlow’s entrance into the race, the path to victory that was visible a couple of months ago has diminished. I support President Trump and respect his decision to endorse Julia Letlow to defeat Bill Cassidy. Because of this, I’m choosing to end my campaign now,’ Emerson said in a statement.
Incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who has served in the U.S. Senate since 2015, is running for re-election.
After the House impeached Trump in 2021, Cassidy was one of the Senate Republicans who voted to convict during a vote that occurred after Trump had already departed from office — the Senate vote ultimately fell short of the threshold required to convict Trump.
The president pledged his endorsement to Letlow in a Truth Social post on Saturday.
‘Should she decide to enter this Race, Julia Letlow has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, JULIA, RUN!!!’ the president exclaimed in the post.
Letlow launched a Senate bid days later.
‘Today, I am announcing my candidacy for the United States Senate to ensure the nation we leave our children is safer and stronger. Louisiana deserves a conservative Senator who will not waver. I am honored to have President Trump’s endorsement and trust. Let’s Geaux!’ she declared in a Tuesday post on X.
Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez are also running in the Republican U.S. Senate primary in the state.
President Trump has accepted the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado. Unlike Machado, however, he does not accept the central lessons that can be gleaned from five decades of Venezuelan misrule. There are three.
Lesson 1: Past prosperity is no guarantee of future prosperity.
In 1970, Venezuela was the wealthiest country in Latin America. Sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserve, it churned out more than 3.5 million barrels of oil a day. Using GDP per person as a metric, its citizens earned 2.7 times as much as the rest of Latin America — about the same as the average Finnish, Japanese, and Italian citizen.
This prosperity bought Venezuelans better health, longer life, and more creature comforts — especially fancy foreign cars that poured into the country as oil poured out. And it wasn’t just the wealthy that benefited. Venezuela’s poverty rate was about a third of what it was in the rest of Latin America.
The zenith was around 1977. Thanks to the global oil crisis of a few years earlier, crude prices had quadrupled. Amidst the boom, President Carlos Andrés Pérez made the fateful decision to nationalize the country’s oil industry, hoping to use its wealth to fund economic development and poverty relief. Instead, by combining public and private interests, the decision proved a boon for corruption, eventually turning the country into a petrostate.
Almost immediately, incomes began to fall. By 1999, average Venezuelans were earning less than 90 percent of what they had three decades earlier. But the worst was yet to come.
Which brings us to the second lesson.
Lesson 2: Policy matters.
Oil was not the only explanation for Venezuela’s 1970s prosperity. The government spent and taxed modestly. It left most industry in private hands. Inflation was low. And international trade was almost entirely free of tariffs and regulatory barriers to trade.
In 1970, Venezuela scored a little less than 7 on the Fraser Institute’s 10-point Economic Freedom of the World index, making it the 13th most economically free country in the world, just ahead of Japan.
But as the rest of the world liberalized in the 1980s and 1990s, Venezuela went in the opposite direction. The government ramped up transfers and subsidies and began to acquire more assets. Property rights grew less secure. Inflation reached 26 percent in 1980 and over 50 percent in 1995. By 2000, Venezuela had slipped to 116th in economic freedom.
In 1999, as the economy faltered, a frustrated electorate turned to an outsider, Hugo Chávez. Chávez had risen to fame seven years earlier when he led an unsuccessful coup d’état against the democratically elected government (ironically led by Andrés Pérez, who had returned as president in 1989).
Though left-of-center, he did not begin as a radical. Instead, he positioned himself as a populist reformer who could steer a “Third Way” between socialism and capitalism. But he grew more radical after a failed coup attempt against him in 2002. By 2005 he had fully embraced the socialist label, recasting his movement as “Socialism of the 21st Century.”
It wasn’t just branding. He nearly doubled transfers and subsidies and more than doubled government investment. He tightened control over the government-owned oil company and nationalized other industries, including steel, iron, mining, cement, farming, food distribution, grocery chains, hotels, telecommunications, and banking. The government stopped respecting and protecting private property. Annual inflation bounced around from 20 to 60 per cent. At the time of his death in 2013, Venezuela’s overall economic freedom was close to 3 on the 10-point scale, making it the least economically free country in the world.
But as the government took, nature gave. The country’s massive Orinoco Oil Belt continued to churn out about 2.5 million barrels of oil every day. As a result, GDP per person recovered.
Many Western observers, from Senator Bernie Sanders to director Oliver Stone, saw this as a sign that socialism works. But the reality is that Venezuela’s oil-fueled boom had only managed to bring incomes back to 1970s levels. Moreover, careful econometric analyses comparing Venezuela’s performance to that of other similarly situated countries, found that Venezuela consistently under-performed.
Chávez died in 2013, leaving the country in the hands of his Vice President, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro clung fast to Chávez’s policies, but as global oil prices plummeted, Socialism of the 21st Century began to look a lot like socialism in the 20th century: incomes collapsed, poverty exploded, and inflation became hyper (reaching over one million percent in 2018).
Maduro responded predictably, imposing price controls that produced massive shortages of household necessities. About a quarter of the population fled the country.
But the cost was not merely economic. Which brings us to the final lesson.
Lesson 3: Economic and Personal Freedom are Deeply Intertwined.
Socialism is typically imposed at the point of a gun. But notwithstanding his attempted 1992 coup, Chávez had come to power through free and mostly fair elections. This seems to have been one reason why Western observers were so taken in by the regime. Writing in her 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein claimed that Venezuelan “citizens had renewed their faith in the power of democracy to improve their lives.”
But if she had looked closer, she would have seen the early signs of Venezuela’s anti-democratic turn. The Human Freedom Index, co-published by the Fraser Institute and the Cato Institute, builds on the Economic Freedom of the World index by adding 7 additional areas of personal freedom. As the figure below shows, the regime cracked down on personal freedoms just as it limited economic freedoms. By the time Klein wrote her book, Venezuela had already severely restricted freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of movement, and the rule of law.
This, unfortunately, is common. As we see in the final figure, most regimes that restrict economic freedom also tend to restrict personal freedom. It is easy to imagine why. People value their economic liberties, so regimes that seek to severely repress these liberties often cling to power by suppressing dissent. And because socialist regimes own the means of production — including media production like radio, print, and TV outlets — they have a handy tool at their disposal for suppression.
What now?
As the Cato Institute’s Marcos Falcone recently explained, one Venezuelan who seems to have internalized these lessons is María Corina Machado. As a decades-long leader of the opposition, she has consistently championed both personal and economic liberty. She traces much of the country’s corruption, mismanagement, and stagnation to its 1976 nationalization of the oil industry.
And she is wildly popular. In the unified opposition primary of 2024, she ran on a platform of complete oil privatization and won 90 percent of the vote. Maduro refused to let her run in the general election, so she backed Edmundo González Urrutia and he is estimated to have won 70 percent of the vote. But Maduro refused to recognize the result and clung to power.
Now, apparently, President Trump is in charge. But like Maduro before him, Trump refuses to recognize the results of the last election. He claims that Machado lacks the “respect” and “support” to lead. Polls, meanwhile, indicate that she is favored by more than 70 percent of the country. While accepting her re-gifted Nobel Prize, Mr. Trump has decided to give the reins to Maduro’s Vice President, the socialist Delcy Rodriguez, calling her a “terrific person” and predicting a great Venezuelan renaissance.
As for privatization, Trump instead says “we’re going to keep the oil.” He claims that Rodriquez will be “turning over” up to 50 million barrels to the US, the proceeds of which will be “controlled by me, as President of the United States of America.”
Meanwhile, he is strong-arming US oil companies to invest in the country, telling them that if they want to recover their property that was seized by President Andrés Pérez in 1976, they’d better cooperate in rebuilding Venezuela’s infrastructure. For their part, the companies have been reluctant to do so, citing the country’s poor track record of protecting private property.
Like Andrés Pérez, Chávez, and Maduro, Trump seems to imagine that the right central plan will unlock the country’s vast oil wealth. But history teaches a different lesson.
Does the administration think its supporters don’t understand economics?
I would hope not, but some of their policies and proposals make one wonder. On Tuesday, President Trump revived the idea of a $2,000 tariff “dividend” check. Although the politics make sense, the administration assumes people don’t understand basic economic theory. President Trump has painted tariffs as making the American economy more competitive and more productive while simultaneously extracting money from foreigners who pay the Treasury.
If that’s what was happening, economists would be cheering the tariffs. Unfortunately, President Trump’s understanding of tariffs is just as faulty as his understanding of how much revenue the tariffs have raised. High tariffs don’t make the American economy more competitive. They make it less competitive, because it becomes harder and more costly to build and manufacture. Nor do high tariffs increase production — just the opposite. US manufacturing output has declined over the past year.
And the notion that foreigners bear the burden of paying tariff taxes to the Treasury misses the fact that they turn around and collect more dollars from American businesses and consumers who pay higher prices for imported goods. The great irony of Trump’s proposal is that he is simply giving people back their own money — the extra $120 they spent on coffee or tea or bananas, or the extra $90 they paid for beef or the extra $100 they paid for clothing or the extra $200 they paid for toys or electronics since “Liberation Day.”
The worst thing about this whole situation is not that Americans have already paid for the tariff checks. It’s that besides paying for it, they have had to live with a less efficient and less productive economy. At the same time, the US reputation and status on the global stage, when it came to trade, has been greatly diminished. Many of our trading partners have begun looking for more reliable trading partners.
Despite a handful of big “commitments” of foreign investment, largely made to placate or bribe President Trump until he has moved on to the next shiny object, most companies and countries have been making plans to restructure their supply chains and trading arrangements in light of the US being a much less attractive trading partner. Not only that, but the US trade deficit has ballooned during Trump’s first year.
But back to the topic of tariff checks.
Who doesn’t want to receive a $2,000 check (or maybe several checks if kids receive them too)? I would certainly appreciate getting one! The problem, though, can be seen in the tagline: “When everyone is special, no one is.” Everyone getting more dollars without more production doesn’t actually make our country wealthier. Real benefit comes from higher production in the economy.
Millions of Americans were happy to receive COVID-19 stimulus checks. But ask yourself, “Would I want those checks and the subsequent high inflation, or would I have preferred prices to remain low and stable?” Most thoughtful people would say the latter, because the stimulus checks were temporary and quickly spent. The higher prices, however, are here to stay — and our children and grandchildren will have to live with higher prices too.
So let’s not kid ourselves. Trump’s tariff dividend check idea is a destructive short-run play for popular support. It won’t solve anyone’s financial problems. It won’t boost employment. And it won’t fix any of the inefficiencies created by his high-tariff regime. If anything, it will stoke inflation and fuel the fire of class warfare since he has proposed that some people get checks and others will not, based on their income. Nor can the executive branch unilaterally send “tariff dividend” checks to the American people without appropriation from Congress.
If Trump wants to make the American economy great again, he should stop pursuing gimmicks and ad hoc investment commitments. He should replace the current hodgepodge of tariffs with a low, flat rate that doesn’t raise the cost of doing business in the US much and still allows an abundant flow of trade across our borders. He might raise more tariff revenue under such a regime.Finally, the administration should redouble its efforts to implement deep institutional reforms – such as streamlining and reducing regulations around nuclear power, mining, drug R&D, and dozens of other industries – that will allow Americans greater scope and opportunity to improve their lives without relying on checks from Washington.
President Donald Trump on Thursday said the United States should have considered testing NATO by forcing member countries to respond to America’s southern border crisis.
Trump speculated in a post on Truth Social that the U.S. could have invoked Article 5 — the alliance’s collective defense clause that deems an attack on one member as an attack on all — thereby putting NATO ‘to the test.’
‘Maybe we should have put NATO to the test: Invoked Article 5, and forced NATO to come here and protect our Southern Border from further Invasions of Illegal Immigrants, thus freeing up large numbers of Border Patrol Agents for other tasks,’ he wrote.
The president’s comments came after he has recently questioned NATO’s commitment to aiding the U.S.
‘We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us,’ the president wrote on social media earlier this month.
After meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump announced that he had the ‘framework of a future deal regarding Greenland.’
Trump wrote on Truth Social that if finalized, the deal ‘will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations.’
Following the meeting, Trump said he would scrap a plan to impose tariffs on a group of NATO members who sent troops to Greenland amid the president’s efforts to acquire the island. Trump had asserted that those countries would be subjected to a 10% tariff on all goods beginning Feb. 1.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News this week, Rutte said Trump was ‘totally right’ about needing to shore up security in the Arctic region, noting that the chance of Russia or China becoming a threat in that region was increasing.
Rutte applauded Trump’s leadership in getting NATO countries to pay more money for the alliance’s defenses.
‘I would argue tonight with you on this program he was the one who brought a whole of Europe and Canada up to this famous 5%,’ Rutte said, ‘which is crucial for us to equalize our spending, but also protect ourselves. And this is the framework which you see in his post that we will work on.’
NATO members were previously spending 2% of GDP on defense, but have now agreed to spend 5% of GDP on defense and national security infrastructure.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
— The Republican National Committee (RNC) is taking a big step toward holding its first-ever midterm convention.
The RNC on Thursday advanced a change to the party’s rules that would allow Chairman Joe Gruters ‘to convene a special ceremonial convention outside a presidential election cycle,’ according to a memo shared first with Fox News Digital.
National political conventions, where party delegates from around the country formally nominate their party’s presidential candidates, normally take place during presidential election years.
But with Republicans aiming to protect their narrow control of the Senate and their razor-thin House majority in this year’s elections, President Donald Trump announced in September that the GOP would hold a convention ahead of the midterms ‘in order to show the great things we have done’ since recapturing the White House.
The new memo highlights ‘the possibility of an America First midterm convention-style gathering aligned with President Trump’s vision for energizing the party this fall.’
The party in power, in this case the Republicans, normally faces stiff political headwinds in the midterms. And the hope among Trump and top Republicans is that a midterm convention would give the GOP a high-profile platform to showcase the president’s record and their congressional candidates running in the midterms.
The RNC’s rules are based on holding a convention every four years. The proposed rule change will allow the RNC to hold a midterm convention. If adopted, the rule states that the convention must be called at least 60 days in advance, and no business would be conducted during the gathering.
The proposed change was adopted Thursday evening by the RNC’s Rules Committee during the party’s winter meeting in Santa Barbara, California.
It’s unclear if the full RNC membership will vote on the rule change when it gathers Friday at the confab’s general session. If the rule isn’t adopted by the full RNC, it’s expected to be approved at the party’s spring meeting.
Gruters, in a statement to Fox News Digital, highlighted that the RNC’s winter meeting ‘shows how completely united Republicans are behind President Trump and our efforts to win the midterms. The RNC has been aggressively focused on expanding our war chest, turning out voters and protecting the ballot in this fall’s elections. We’re building the operation needed to protect our majorities and give President Trump a full four-year term with a Republican Congress.’
Details on the date and location of the midterm convention will come at a later date and will likely be announced by the president.
But a Republican source told Fox News Digital it’s probable the convention would be held at the same time as the RNC’s summer meeting, which typically occurs in August.
The rival Democratic National Committee (DNC) may also hold a midterm convention. Sources confirmed to Fox News Digital last summer that DNC chair Ken Martin and other party leaders were quietly pushing the idea of a convention ahead of the midterms.
Democrats held a handful of midterm conventions in the 1970s and 1980s.
Aura Energy Limited (ASX: AEE, AIM: AURA) (“Aura” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce that MMCAP International Inc. SPC (‘MMCAP’) and certain other strategic investors (together the ‘Strategic Investors’) will provide funding of C$10 million for a 19.7% interest in the Company’s polymetallic Häggån project (‘the Häggån Project’) located in Sweden, establishing its value at C$50 million.
Aura has entered into a binding agreement to transfer 100% of the Häggån Project to SIU Metals Corp. (‘SIU Metals‘), an unlisted Canadian public company, in consideration for acquiring shares in SIU Metals. The agreement will result in SIU Metals being the 100% owner of the Häggån Project.
Aura will retain 78.7% ownership of SIU Metals and the Strategic Investors will own 19.7% after contributing C$10 million via a private placement. SIU Metals intends to seek a stock market listing on the TSX Venture Exchange (‘TSXV’) in connection with the transaction.
HIGHLIGHTS
Valuation for Häggån project established at C$50 million (A$55 million)
Agreement with MMCAP and certain other strategic investors to provide aggregate gross proceeds of C$10 million to SIU Metals, which will be renamed following the transaction
Proceeds to be used for the advancement of the Häggån project, including permitting and resource expansion through continued exploration including on surrounding tenements
Aura will retain ownership of 78.7% of SIU Metals and consequently will retain indirect exposure to the Häggån project post-transaction
Aura to appoint new officers and directors to SIU Metals on closing of transaction
Financing is expected to complete in February 2026, with the transaction expected to complete in June 2026
New Canadian listed company to benefit from increased visibility and direct comparison with valuation of other public companies with similar deposits
On 1 January 2026, the Minerals Act in Sweden was amended to allow exploration for and extraction of uranium
Phil Mitchell, Executive Chairman Aura Energy, said:
“We are delighted to welcome investors of the calibre of MMCAP, Aura’s largest shareholder, and other high-quality investors into this new vehicle for Aura’s Häggån project, and the future support they can bring. We believe their investment is a demonstration of the quality and potential of the project, and its exciting future as, following legislation changes brought into effect on 1 January 2026, mining of uranium is now allowed again in Sweden. This transaction shines a spotlight on the under-recognized value of Häggån within Aura Energy, and creates an independent and dedicated pathway for funding, growth and management of the project.
Upon successful completion of the transaction, Aura’s existing shareholders will continue to benefit from Häggån’s upside potential, and by way of a direct comparison with the valuation of other companies with similar deposits in the region.”
Steve Barton, host of In It To Win It, shares price targets for silver and discusses when silver stocks may start to outperform the metal.
‘I fully expect a catch-up trade like this — I think that it’s coming, and I think it’s going to come this year and probably this first quarter,’ he said.
Securities Disclosure: I, Charlotte McLeod, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
After taking a bearish turn in late 2024, manganese prices started 2025 on a flat note despite a robust demand outlook supported by growth in the electric vehicle (EV) battery segment.
In the first half of 2025, the manganese market experienced mixed signals as supply dynamics shifted and demand from the steelmaking sector remained uneven. Early in the year, logistical disruptions and tight inventories in China briefly supported manganese ore prices — China’s port stocks fell to multi-year lows in March, drawing down to roughly 3.7 million metric tons due to by logistical bottlenecks and steady consumption by alloy makers and steel producers.
A rebound in sales in early spring pushed ore prices to a 2025 high of US$4.48 per metric ton.
However, by mid-year, the broader picture was one of ample supply and downward price pressure.
Manganese ore production climbed to around 10.1 million metric tons in H1, buoyed by strong export volumes from South Africa and Gabon and the resumption of Australian shipments that had been disrupted in 2024.
At the same time, global steel output weakened, particularly in China, where production declined about 3 percent year-on-year amid slowing domestic demand, while India and North America posted modest gains.
Demand for manganese alloys also softened, with sales volumes down modestly and margins compressed by rising feedstock costs, especially for alloy producers facing less favorable mixes.
Manganese prices struggle as structural demand builds
By June 20, 2025, manganese’s H1 gains had eroded and ore prices fell to US$4.21.
Eramet (EPA:ERA,OTCPL:ERMAF), a major producer, said it expected supply of manganese ore to increase in the second half of 2025, partly as key producers such as Australia returned volumes to market after earlier disruptions.
‘Ore supply should increase in H2, driven by the full return to the market of the leading Australian producer, partly offset by a potential downward revision of South African exports,’ the company notes. Demand for manganese alloys was expected to weaken in line with seasonality and softer global steel production.
Analysts cautioned that production expansions from major manganese producers could exacerbate oversupply. “Production increases … can only lead to oversupply, leading to a reduction in price,” one industry executive said.
Protectionist measures in key markets, including new EU quotas on ferroalloys, added uncertainty by potentially disrupting traditional trade flows and affecting alloy pricing dynamics.
Beyond the steel sector, structural shifts in consumption patterns emerged.
Although steelmaking still accounts for the lion’s share of manganese demand, interest in battery-related uses, particularly high-purity manganese for lithium-ion and next-generation EV chemistries, continued to gain attention.
“Our expectations of ongoing strengthening battery-grade demand and production in China in Q4 have been tempered somewhat by ongoing challenges within the nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) market,” Rob Searle, battery raw materials analyst at Fastmarkets, wrote in a November battery metals market update.
“While we expect a level of demand ramp-up in Q4, in the wider context of geopolitical challenges and a challenging Chinese market, the manganese demand uptick in the short term could be somewhat tempered,’ he added.
Changing battery chemistries
During a June Supply Chain (SC) Insights webinar, experts noted that manganese-rich cathode chemistries are increasingly drawing attention as automakers seek to cut costs and reduce exposure to cobalt and nickel.
Andy Leyland, founder of SC Insights, pointed out “manganese-rich chemistry is really offering a good solution … in terms of costs,” highlighting the commodity’s role in emerging battery designs.
While high-nickel NCM batteries remain dominant, industry players are exploring manganese as a lower-cost, high-performance alternative in Europe and North America, where supply chains remain heavily reliant on imports, particularly from China. OEMs are under pressure to secure raw materials directly, with vertical integration and direct sourcing emerging as key strategies to manage price volatility and supply security.
John Mulcahy, supply chain specialist at SC Insights, emphasized that sourcing upstream allows companies to negotiate better terms and reduce exposure to market fluctuations, even amid low pricing environments.
Manganese-rich chemistries are expected to expand steadily, complementing existing NCM and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, rather than replacing them entirely.
As Leyland noted, these materials are “definitely very high up on the focus from the demand side,” signaling growing adoption in the global push for cost-effective, low-cobalt battery solutions.
In March, Firebird Metals (ASX:FRB,OTCPL:FRBMF) produced its first lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) EV batteries, becoming the first Australian company to achieve the feat. The move could position Firebird as a low-cost manganese cathode player, and highlights growth in the LMFP battery production segment.
Rising nationalism presents trade challenges
With the demand picture for manganese showing promise, analysts warn that export restrictions in Gabon could lead to a supply crunch before the decade is over. According to the US Geological Survey, 63 percent of US manganese imports come from Gabon. In June, the African nation announced plans to implement an export ban in January 2029.
Gabon’s renewed push to ban manganese ore exports from 2029 underscores Africa’s broader shift toward value addition, but it also risks tightening an already fragile global supply picture, a Project Blue market note reads.
As the world’s second largest exporter, Gabon shipped more than 7 million metric tons of high-grade ore in 2024, material that is critical to both ferroalloy production and emerging battery supply chains.
An export ban would hit Chinese buyers and European processors reliant on Gabonese feedstock, while adding pressure to the high-grade market at a time when Australia’s GEMCO mine is expected to wind down later this decade.
Although in-country processing — through ferroalloys or batteries — offers a path to capture more value locally, it would require significant investment and could shift, rather than eliminate, environmental and logistical costs.
For global markets, Gabon’s move signals rising resource nationalism in Africa and a potential structural squeeze on manganese supply heading into the next decade.
“However, without large-scale investments from China, a key battery producer, such ambitious plans of African governments risk remaining unrealised,” the Project Blue overview states.
“China has invested in Africa’s mineral industry (e.g. Ghana), securing access to the continent’s high-quality raw materials, while keeping production of high value-added products directly in China.”
In early 2025, Euro Manganese (TSXV:EMN,OTCPL:EUMNF) scored a major boost when its Chvaletice manganese project was designated a “strategic project” under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act.
The move underscores the EU’s push to secure local supply of critical battery materials and could tighten the manganese market by prioritizing European production in the continent’s energy transition.
Oversupply vs. new manganese demand drivers
For 2026, analysts expect the manganese market to remain broadly balanced, but with pressures and opportunities on both the supply and demand fronts. However, longer-term fundamentals point to steady growth.
Global market forecasts indicate the manganese industry could expand modestly in value and volume by 2035, driven by ongoing demand from steel and increasing uptake in battery and clean-energy applications.
Some reports project market size rising through the decades, with Asia-Pacific demand remaining dominant and new opportunities emerging in the electrification and high-purity material segments.
Steel demand will continue to be the principal driver in 2026, with India’s expanding production offering a potential buffer against slower growth in China and Europe. Battery applications may not yet move the pricing needle dramatically, but their structural importance is increasing as automakers and cathode developers look to diversify away from nickel and cobalt reliance, a trend that could support manganese demand in the medium term.
“Looking ahead to the coming weeks and months, it is likely we won’t see too much further upward pressure on prices. Asian markets are heading towards the seasonal lull in demand and manufacturing activity in February as the Lunar New Year holidays begin,” Searle said in a January Fastmarkets report.
“At the same time, there are concerns around what China’s EV demand outlook looks like in Q1 2026, with changes to subsidy schemes potentially leading to softening consumption of battery-grade manganese.”
Securities Disclosure: I, Georgia Williams, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Aura Energy Limited (ASX: AEE, AIM: AURA) (“Aura” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce that MMCAP International Inc. SPC (‘MMCAP’) and certain other strategic investors (together the ‘Strategic Investors’) will provide funding of C$10 million for a 19.7% interest in the Company’s polymetallic Häggån project (‘the Häggån Project’) located in Sweden, establishing its value at C$50 million. 
Cyprium Metals (CYM:AU) has announced Capital Raise Presentation
