A dual-attribution framework reveals how foreign investment and trade redistribute cobalt availability

Global resource allocation is increasingly shaped by foreign direct investment (FDI) and international trade, yet their combined effects on distribution of critical mineral availability across countries remain poorly quantified. Here, we develop a dual-attribution framework covering 193 countries and 36 territories that attributes primary cobalt availability according to corporate ownership and secondary availability according to international trade. We compare these estimates with a combined baseline scenario using geographic-production and pre-trade perspectives to assess how ownership and trade reshape country-level cobalt availability. Relative to this baseline, total cobalt availability is higher in 63.6% of countries, while 72.7% show a positive composite change when primary and secondary availability are equally weighted. Although these mechanisms do not alter the global total amount of cobalt available, they reduce its concentration across countries. Our findings highlight how FDI and trade reshape cobalt distribution and support resource-governance policies that account for both host and exporting countries. This study shows how foreign investment and international trade reshape global cobalt availability. A dual-attribution framework reveals higher attributed availability in most countries while reducing country-level concentration.