for context here, phosphorus is the 11th most common element in the earth's crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... making up 0.1% of the crust. phosphorus and oxygen be sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, so virtually all of it is in the form of phosphate (PO₄), which is 33% phosphorus by mass, so the earth's crust is about 0.3% phosphate. the most common phosphate is apatite, which is ubiquitous in igneous and metamorphic rocks. you can find phosphate literally anywhere on earth; there is no danger of any country monopolizing world phosphate supplies

if the crust is 3 × 10¹⁹ tonnes then phosphate is about 10¹⁷ tonnes of it, and phosphate rock a slightly larger amount

this article says the humans use 50 million tonnes of phosphate a year, much of which ends up in the oceans. at this rate, in 18 million years, the humans will have consumed 0.001% of the phosphate in the crust

but being able to find phosphate isn't the same thing as being able to mine it profitably, because, thanks to modern shipping, another phosphate miner halfway around the world can sell phosphate to your local customers at almost the same price they can sell it to their own neighbors. if they are working from more concentrated phosphate deposits, their price will be lower, and you'll lay off the miners and declare bankruptcy

so what's going on here is that local mining companies are fishing for government subsidies with rhetoric about sovereignty based on a completely imaginary phosphate shortage crisis

i'm not a hard rock mining engineer, just interested in questions of natural resources