There’s a president who’s sure, all that glitters is niobium

Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is not a gifted orator. When speaking in public, he speaks in a truncated drone, preferring dry teleprompter-assisted statements to expressive addresses. There is one subject, however, that makes Mr. Bolsonaro’s eyes light up, sparking a childlike excitement and fascination: a chemical element called niobium.

“We need our own Silicon Valley. It would be called Niobium Valley!” he gushed, at one event. Jair Bolsonaro’s obsession for niobium—a transition metal largely used to make a highly resistant steel alloy named ferroniobium—is rooted in the belief that it could be used for other applications and “give Brazil its economic freedom.”

In Osaka for the G20 Summit at the end of June, Mr. Bolsonaro recorded a live Facebook broadcast to show off the qualities of niobium, which has been used in Japan to make jewelry.

“So here we have a little necklace,” said Mr. Bolsonaro, fidgeting with a small chain. “It’s blue, because it’s blue … there are lots of different colors!”

He goes on to explain that the necklace cost the equivalent of BRL 4,000 and that...