As I see it your evaluation of the state of economy is US based.
US is not the global economy. China, India and to some extent Australia and Canada (as examples) are merely maimed by US and not damaged. China has merely suffered a set back from 10% growth to about half while Canada as an example would be doing just fine if it were not tied to manufacturing for US. Here the NAFTA has hurt us.

Look at Australia, they are doing fairly well because of resource investment from Asia, mainly China. Note recently that China is buying/investing also in Canada, mainly resources. There is no shortage of capital, just hesitation in it being invested and dependant on who is doing the investing.

Certainly US based investing is hurting and will do so for the foreseeable future but that should not be applied to the rest of the world.

All Noront needs to do is establish a reasonable sized resource and the investment capital will flood in. So the illiquid you mention is mostly Us based and does not apply to Noront's future.

Also I do not buy the argument ("Any development of the FWR deposit would be great for NOT valuation") that if FWR builds a mine it would help Noront with their chromite. Quite to the contrary, they would corner the north American part of the market and there would be no room for Noront to build a chromite mine for decades. That is the main cause why the offer was proposed.

'Build it and they will come.'