On March 30, 2026, SAFE’s Center for Critical Minerals Strategy submitted comments in response to the Department of the Treasury’s Guidance to Apply Interim Safe Harbors for Purposes of Determining a Taxpayer’s Material Assistance from a Prohibited Foreign Entity; Other Prohibited Foreign Entity Guidance.
The credits noted in this guidance, like the Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit (Section 45X), support the domestic processing of critical minerals and the manufacturing of energy technologies enabled by those materials. By supporting domestic processing and manufacturing, these credits help reduce reliance on hostile foreign powers and advance the energy, manufacturing, and national security objectives as outlined in Executive Order 14156, “Declaring a National Energy Emergency,” and Executive Order 14241, “Immediate Measures To Increase American Mineral Production.”
While these credits are primarily designed to support energy supply chains, they will also have important spillover effects for defense and other advanced industries, strengthening broader industrial capacity, promoting economic growth and opportunity, and enhancing U.S. economic and national security.
Given the importance of these credits in shaping investment and sourcing decisions across emerging industrial supply chains, and their role as a foundation of President Trump’s agenda, it is critical that the final rules are both administrable and effective in advancing secure domestic and allied production.
SAFE’s comments seek to help the Department and the IRS in thinking about how to implement the tax credit in a manner that balances two goals: 1) the desire to unlock billions of dollars of private sector investment in critical mineral processing, advanced energy technology manufacturing, and the production of the components and materials those technologies require, and 2) the desire to develop secure supply chains across the critical sectors of the economy targeted by the credit so that they can make a sustained contribution to U.S. economic growth, industrial capacity, and national security over time. Achieving the appropriate balance between these goals will require final rules that are sufficiently stringent to achieve their intended effect, while also remaining administrable across emerging industrial supply chains.
Read SAFE’s full comments here.
