ABSTRACT
This chapter considers minerals significant in US-Canadian trade and deals with an analysis of the potential effects of production from seabed nodules on the bilateral relationship over the next two decades. The platinum group – cobalt, cadmium, selenium, and tellurium – are all produced in North America, primarily as by-products of nickel, copper, zinc, and lead or of a combination of these. Cobalt, cadmium, selenium, and tellurium, like silver, platinum, and — to a lesser degree — gold, are produced in North America primarily as by-products of nonferrous metals. Scrap is a much less important source of zinc than of iron and steel, lead, copper, platinum, silver, tungsten, gold, and some less important minerals in US-Canadian trade. By the 1970s, zinc had become the fourth-largest non-fuel-mineral commodity, by value, in international trade – after iron ore, bauxite, and copper. Silver, gold, and platinum manifest some common characteristics with regard to bilateral relations and markets overseas.
