The Pirate State Needs Picks and Shovels
The physical reality of the Pirate State is that it currently lacks the upstream supply chain to be sustained beyond a multi-year inventory drawdown.
In just 90 days, the United States executed what journalist Richard Medhurst has called a global energy blitzkrieg — hundreds of strikes on Russian tankers and refineries, the disabling of a third of China’s oil and LNG supply, the capture of the world’s largest oil reserves, and the establishment of a global naval blockade stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Indian Ocean. Two heads of state were kidnapped or killed in the process. The petrodollar — the post-1971 monetary order pegged to Gulf oil — was quietly retired and replaced by what Medhurst calls the Petrogas-Dollar: an American currency now backed not just by oil, but by liquefied natural gas, the world’s largest captured reserves, and the physical capacity to interdict any cargo that doesn’t pay through the US system.
It is, by any honest measure, the most significant restructuring of the global economic order since Bretton Woods. Being investment focused, we are trying to figure out ways to keep the couch afloat during these chaotic times.
And the defense primes have already moved on it. RTX is up 50% over twelve months. Lockheed Martin has been grinding to all-time highs. Huntington Ingalls has tripled in three years. Nucor is up 89% YoY. Cleveland-Cliffs has the GOES monopoly the market still hasn’t quite priced, but the share register is already crowded with hedge funds positioning for it.
But there’s a layer beneath the defense primes that the market has not yet repriced — and it is the layer where Medhurst’s thesis ultimately lives or dies. Because the Pirate State’s expanded fleet is not made of paper. It is made of metal. Very specific metals. From very specific places. Most of which, today, the United States cannot produce.
This is where the Critical Metals Brief has been positioning since long before Medhurst’s documentary published— and where, in our view, the most asymmetric remaining returns from this thesis still sit.
The Petrogas-Dollar in One Page
The United States has transitioned from an empire that fought wars to control oil into what he calls a “Pirate State” that uses its existing oil dominance to control everything else. Three campaigns — Operation Southern Spear in the Caribbean, Operation Arctic Sentry in the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, and Operation Epic Fury in the Persian Gulf — have been executed in coordinated sequence to physically interdict the oil and gas trade routes that supply America’s strategic competitors. Venezuela’s heavy crude has been seized and rerouted to Gulf Coast refineries. Russian tanker capacity has been degraded by 40%, with strikes deep into refineries that Ukraine could not reach in four years of war. Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG complex was disabled within a week of the Iran war beginning, sidelining the world’s second-largest LNG exporter and forcing Asian and European buyers into the arms of US suppliers at wartime spot prices.
The economic mechanism is symmetric, methodical, and brutal. American LNG cannot compete with Russian piped gas on price — so the pipes were destroyed. American LNG cannot compete with cheap long-term Qatari contracts — so Ras Laffen was destroyed. American LNG must travel by ship — so the maritime infrastructure is being mandated, via the SHIPS for America Act and the Maritime Action Plan, to be physically rebuilt on US soil with US-flagged vessels and US-tolled passage. The dollar is being recapitalized not by commodity exports alone, but by the global market’s inability to transact in any other currency for the only fuel left on the table.
In February 2026 alone, net private capital inflows to the United States hit $184.5 billion — a $209.5 billion swing from the prior month’s outflow. The Treasury TIC data does not lie. The world is being physically forced back into dollars to pay for US energy, US Treasuries are absorbing the residue, and the Dollar’s SWIFT share has hit a record 51.1%.
The Pirate State Is a Physical Object
The maritime power that enforces the Petrogas-Dollar is not abstract. It is steel hulls, missile bodies, drone airframes, propulsion alloys, electronic warfare arrays, transformer cores, and battery packs. Every Tomahawk that flies from a Navy destroyer is a tungsten-cored kinetic device wrapped in titanium and aluminum. Every Switchblade loitering munition above the Strait of Hormuz contains rare earth permanent magnets in its motor. Every armor-piercing round in a Marine arsenal is alloyed with antimony. Every transformer feeding power to the AI data centers underwriting the dollar’s productivity premium contains grain-oriented electrical steel — and there is exactly one US producer of it.
When Trump signed the SHIPS for America Act and the Maritime Action Plan declared US shipyards a national priority, the document did not specify where the Invar nickel alloy for LNG carrier membranes would come from. It does not come from the United States. It comes from Aperam in France and a small share from Baosteel in China. When the Pentagon banned Chinese rare earth magnets from US military platforms beginning in 2027, it did not specify where the heavy rare earths would be processed. There is one facility — REalloys’ PMT Critical Metals plant in Euclid, Ohio — and it is not yet at commercial scale. When the US announced FY2027 defense spending of $1.5 trillion, including a $185 billion Golden Dome missile defense initiative, it did not announce the antimony, the tungsten, or the gallium that those munitions will require. China controls 87% of antimony, 83% of tungsten, and most of the gallium.
The physical reality of the Pirate State is that it currently lacks the upstream supply chain to be sustained beyond a multi-year inventory drawdown. Pentagon framework agreements with RTX call for 2x to 4x increases in production rates of Tomahawk, AMRAAM, and the Standard Missile family. Munitions output across critical programs grew 40% year-over-year in Q1 2026 alone. That growth is being achieved against a metals supply chain that, in many critical categories, has zero domestic primary production.
This is the structural mismatch the equity market has not yet priced. Defense primes have re-rated for the demand signal. The materials suppliers — particularly the junior and mid-tier producers bringing Western capacity online in 2026 and 2027 — have not yet re-rated to reflect what happens when that demand actually meets supply.
The Defense Names Have Already Moved
The 2025–2026 defense cycle has been generous to anyone who positioned early. The numbers:
RTX — up roughly 50% over twelve months, pulled back to $174 from the $214 peak; record $271B backlog; framework agreements signed with the Department of War for Tomahawk, AMRAAM, and Standard Missile that aren’t even fully in backlog yet.
Lockheed Martin — sole-source on F-35, prime on AEGIS, owner of the MK-70 Payload Delivery System that turns every Saildrone Spectre into a strike platform; trades at typical defense prime multiples around 18x forward.
Huntington Ingalls — up 108% over twelve months, P/E 26.7x, $57B backlog including sole-source on nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers; the maritime industrial base monopoly has been recognized.
Kratos — up roughly 150% YoY on the Valkyrie program of record win at the Marines, plus the classified Poseidon contract; trades at 75x forward earnings.
These names are not wrong. The thesis is right. But the entry economics have changed. RTX trades at ~25x forward earnings against an analyst consensus 12-month target that implies 24% upside — a real number, but not the asymmetric setup it was in early 2025. Kratos at 75x forward is a momentum continuation trade, not a value entry.
This is the moment when those looking to capitalize move one tier upstream — to the inputs that the defense primes themselves cannot produce.
Where The Trade Has Not Run
We have written about this cluster repeatedly in the Critical Metals Brief, and the thesis has been substantially validated by every successive geopolitical development. Our Domestic Supply Chain Trade report in March laid out the five-name core position around USAS, UAMY, UUUU, ALM, and ALOY. We profiled IperionX’s circular titanium platform in March. We deep-dived Fireweed Metals on the Mactung tungsten development thesis in December. And we identified Resolution Minerals before its FAST-41 designation moved the stock 75% in a single session — chronicled in Resolution Minerals Just Got White House Clearance.
What ties these positions together — and what we believe Medhurst’s thesis ultimately confirms — is that the Petrogas-Dollar requires a physical industrial base that the United States has not built in three decades. The defense primes are the demand side of that buildout. The miners and processors are the supply side. And in capital markets terms, the supply side is where the return profile is still asymmetric.
Consider the contrast in valuation logic:
A defense prime trades on multi-year contract backlog converting to revenue at predictable margins. The market understands that model and prices it efficiently. RTX at 25x forward earnings is what RTX should trade at given its growth profile. There is no particular mispricing to exploit.
A junior critical mineral producer trades on the binary outcome of project commissioning, contract conversion, and metal price volatility. The market is structurally bad at pricing these names because the analyst coverage is thin, the comparables are imperfect, and the catalysts are episodic. When the underlying commodity price moves 100% — as tungsten did in 2025, as silver did in early 2026 — the equity moves multiples of that. And when government policy changes the certainty of demand — as the 2027 DoD ban on Chinese tungsten did — the re-rating happens in single sessions, not quarters.
This is the trade we have been positioning around, and the trade we believe the broader market still has not fully repriced.
The Critical Metals Brief Cluster, Updated
The five names anchored in our March cluster note sit at different points along the supply chain, each with distinct catalysts. Tracked against the Petrogas-Dollar thesis:
Americas Gold and Silver USAS
The Galena complex in Idaho is not just a high-grade silver operation; the February 2026 51/49 joint venture with US Antimony makes it the only producing US silver mine with an integrated antimony extraction path. Silver at $85+ per ounce, antimony at $51,500/ton at peak, GDXJ inclusion as of March — and a tetrahedrite ore body that has, until now, been penalized for the antimony content that is suddenly the most valuable byproduct in the strategic minerals universe.
United States Antimony UAMY
The only permitted, operating antimony processor in the United States. Sole-source DoD contract through the Defense Logistics Agency, $245M over five years. Thompson Falls smelter expansion to 400–500 tons per month coming online April 2026 with $27M of DPA Title III funding. Total contracted revenue commitments of $354M through 2025. There is no domestic competition. When Tomahawk production ramps 4x, the antimony has to come from somewhere — and there is exactly one US-based answer.
Energy Fuels UUUU
The White Mesa Mill in Utah is the only US facility producing both uranium and separated rare earth oxides. The convergence trade Medhurst’s thesis demands — clean energy capacity, defense magnet feedstock, Pinyon Plain uranium ramp, $927M working capital with zero debt. The October 2025 $700M convertible at 0.75% coupon funded the entire next-decade buildout while the rest of the sector was raising at punitive equity dilution. This is not a single-commodity bet. It is the single most strategically positioned piece of converted-purpose mining infrastructure in the United States.
Almonty Industries ALM
The Sangdong mine in South Korea hit Phase 1 commercial production in March 2026. Phase 2 expansion to 4,600 tonnes per annum targeted for 2027 — the same year the US ban on Chinese tungsten for defense procurement takes effect. The 15-year offtake agreement is the kind of contracted revenue stream that compresses uncertainty. Almonty’s relocation of headquarters from Toronto to Dillon, Montana in April 2026 was not a tax move. It was positioning to be the prime supplier when the 2027 procurement clock hits zero. The board includes General Gustave Perna and Alan Estevez. The signaling could not be more deliberate.
REalloys ALOY
The youngest position in the cluster, listed only in February 2026, but the most direct expression of the heavy rare earth gap. PMT Critical Metals in Euclid, Ohio is the only advanced heavy rare earth metallization facility in the continental United States — with an existing DLA contract for samarium and gadolinium metals. The $21M CAD investment in the Saskatchewan Research Council’s Rare Earth Processing Facility secures 80% of its output, flowing directly to Ohio. General Jack Keane on the board. The 2027 commercial production target lines up directly with the 2027 Pentagon magnet ban. When the Pentagon mandates that F-35 motors and Switchblade guidance systems use non-Chinese magnets, REalloys is the only continental US company with the metallization capability to deliver. This is, in our view, the highest-asymmetry name in the cluster — sized accordingly.
Beyond the five-name core, three additional positions extend the upstream thesis:
IperionX IPX
The titanium platform play. Direct prototype order from Carver Pump for titanium naval shipbuilding components. $107M+ in DoD funding. Targeting 1,400 tonnes per annum by mid-2027. The only domestic US producer of commercial-scale primary titanium. Every Switchblade airframe, every F-35 component, every naval propulsion shaft is a downstream customer. When the Maritime Action Plan mandates US-built fleet expansion, the titanium has to come from US metal — not Russian VSMPO or Chinese sponge. IperionX is structurally the answer to that mandate, and the recent Carver Pump order is the operational confirmation.
Fireweed Metals FWZ / FWEDF
The Canadian tungsten developer one tier behind Almonty. Mactung, Macpass, and Gayna deposits in northern Canada, with combined contained WO₃ on the order of 375,000 tonnes — strategically significant in Western supply terms. The C$12.9M Government of Canada infrastructure funding for the North Canol corridor is exactly the kind of de-risking signal that allows mid-tier developers to advance toward production timelines that match Pentagon procurement calendars. Fireweed sits below Almonty in production sequence but above most Western tungsten developers in scale and government support. As Western tungsten demand outstrips Almonty’s Sangdong capacity through the late 2020s, the pipeline of next-generation Western producers becomes the natural hedge — and Fireweed leads that pipeline.
Resolution Minerals RML
Antimony Ridge in Idaho was awarded FAST-41 designation by the White House in April 2026 — a permitting fast-track program that compresses the federal review timeline that has historically taken 5–10 years. The stock moved 75% in a single session on the announcement. Surface grades of 48.7% antimony. The Johnson Creek mill acquisition gave Resolution the only private-land processing facility in the Stibnite-Yellow Pine district. NASDAQ ADR listing in progress for mid-2026. We covered this story before the market priced it. The thesis is now more convincing, not less.
What The Defense Primes Cannot Tell You
When RTX reports munitions output up 40% year-over-year, the equity market reads that as production capacity scaling against contracted demand. What it does not read — because the supply chain dependencies are buried in cost-of-goods-sold and disclosed only at the level of operating margin — is where the inputs come from and what happens to margins if those inputs face a supply shock. The defense primes have priced the demand. They have not priced the supply chain risk.
This is the inverse of the early 2024 situation, when junior critical mineral equities priced the supply scarcity but had no demand visibility because government procurement was uncertain. We wrote then that the convergence — government demand meeting domestic supply at scale — would be the inflection point.
It is now happening. Executive Order 14241 mandates increased domestic mineral production. The Defense Production Act Title III is funding Thompson Falls (UAMY), Stibnite (Perpetua), and the Stillwater magnet plant (USA Rare Earth). The DoD bans on Chinese antimony, Chinese tungsten, and Chinese rare earth magnets have moved from rhetoric to procurement code. EXIM Bank financing has been opened to domestic critical mineral projects. FAST-41 designation — the same tool that just moved Resolution Minerals 75% in a session — is being applied to projects across the strategic mineral spectrum.
The market is repricing the demand side rapidly. It has not yet repriced the supply side at the same velocity. That gap is the trade.
Why This Is Different From The Defense Trade
There is one further point worth pressing, particularly for investors building portfolios that have already absorbed meaningful defense exposure.
A position in RTX is a position in a contract revenue stream and an engineering capability. A position in Almonty is a position in a finite quantity of high-grade tungsten ore in the ground. A position in UUUU is a position in the only operating uranium mill in the United States that can also produce separated rare earth oxides — a physical asset that cannot be replicated by capital alone.
Hard assets in jurisdictions friendly to Western defense procurement are, in our view, uniquely positioned for the Petrogas-Dollar thesis because they cannot be substituted, sanctioned away, or built from scratch on a five-year horizon. The Tomahawk supply chain can be expanded with capital. The tungsten supply chain cannot — because the deposits either exist or do not, and the permitting cycle to bring new ones online still measures in years even with FAST-41 acceleration.
This is the value the defense primes cannot offer at current valuations. It is also the value that makes the upstream cluster a distinct portfolio leg rather than a redundant defense expression.
Medhurst’s documentary will, we suspect, become the definitive popular framing of what the United States accomplished between January and April 2026. The Petrogas-Dollar is real, the Pirate State is operational, and the Maritime Action Plan is law. The geopolitical thesis no longer requires defending — it is a present-tense observation.
The equity expression of that thesis through major defense primes is largely complete. Whatever incremental upside remains in those names is tied to multiple expansion that itself depends on whether the supply chain can keep pace with the production ramp the Pentagon is now demanding.
That supply chain is where the Critical Metals Brief positions live. It is the upstream layer that must be built — physically, on US and allied soil — for the Pirate State to be sustained beyond an inventory drawdown cycle. The companies bringing tungsten, antimony, titanium, uranium, and heavy rare earths to commercial scale in 2026 and 2027 are not optional inputs. They are required. And in equity terms, they remain meaningfully behind the defense primes in their re-rating cycle. This is the trade that, in our view, still offers asymmetric exposure to a thesis that is no longer contrarian.
The Pirate State needs picks and shovels. We have been positioning for that delivery for the better part of a year.
Disclaimer: This editorial represents the views of The Critical Metals Brief and does not constitute financial advice. Junior resource equities and defense sector equities both carry material risk including loss of principal. Positions disclosed are for informational purposes only. Always conduct your own due diligence before making any investment decision. Government policy may change; supply chain assumptions may not hold; commodity prices are volatile by nature. The author may hold positions in the securities discussed. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before acting on any of this analysis.