The US is urging countries to form a critical mineral trading bloc to shore up access to resources that are pivotal to manufacturing energy, digital and advanced technologies and technologies, and to reduce the world’s dependence on China for mineral supplies.
Washington says this mineral club would provide countries with a tariff-free trade zone to buy and sell critical minerals with guaranteed minimum prices, helping them compete with Chinese producers and create more resilient supply chains.
China dominates global mineral refining capacity for 19 of 20 key minerals needed to manufacture clean energy technologies and advanced digital infrastructure.
“The Trump administration is proposing a concrete mechanism to return the global critical minerals market to a healthier, more competitive state,” US Vice President JD Vance told government representatives from 54 countries and the European Union attending the first US-hosted critical minerals ministerial meeting on Wednesday.
Large economies like India, Japan, France, Germany and the UK as well as resource-rich emerging and developing economies such as Argentina, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia were represented at the event in Washington DC.
“We want to eliminate th[e] problem of people flooding into our markets with cheap critical minerals to undercut our domestic manufacturers,” Vance said, without naming China.
“We want members to form a trading bloc among allies and partners, one that guarantees American access to American industrial might, while also expanding production across the entire zone. The benefits will be immediate and durable,” he added.
“In the end, it’s all in the US interest of course,” Bryan Bille, a principal at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, told Climate Home News. “At the same time, the Trump Administration realises that international cooperation is needed to address these challenges.”
“America needs you”
“It feels like ‘thank you for coming, America needs your help’,” Patrick Schröder, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, said of the meeting.
“The US now have realised they cannot solve their critical minerals problem just on their own. To really reduce dependence on China, they need this bigger group of countries,” he said.
There is potential for a mineral trading club to become useful to diversify supply chains and support mineral production in developing countries “but it can’t be all about supplying the US with minerals,” Schröder told Climate Home News.
On Wednesday, the US signed 11 bilateral critical minerals agreements with Argentina, the Cook Islands, Ecuador, Guinea, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, the UAE and Uzbekistan. This comes on top of 10 other deals signed in the past five months, including with Australia, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Thailand. The US government says the deals will form the basis for global collaboration.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum told a conference on Tuesday that “there is strong interest from another 20 countries” to sign similar deals.
The US also announced the creation of the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE), which will succeed the Minerals Security Partnership and enable member countries to collaborate on mineral policy and projects. It will be chaired by South Korea until June.
Prioritising cleantech
US officials emphasised the growing need for minerals to power artificial intelligence, data centres and the digital economy but made no reference to the booming demand from cleantech industries manufacturing batteries, heat pumps, solar panels and wind turbines.
For Schröder, Europe could play a role in shaping the initiative by prioritising cleantech industries.
Any price-floor mechanism “should also be linked to ensuring that mining and processing is done to the highest possible environmental standards” and support efforts to improve supply chain traceability, he said.
The Trump administration argues that setting a minimum price for minerals will help create a stable environment to attract long-term capital into new mining projects.
But how this will work in practice remains unclear and complex. Prices vary for each mineral, each stage of the value chain and across different countries. “All of that needs to be discussed and agreed,” said Schröder, warning that a trading club could easily become “a cartel” and risk breaching World Trade Organisation rules.
Chinese dependence
The US’s attempt to broker new alliances to secure mineral supplies comes as Washington is seeking to fast-track mining permits at home and announced plans to stockpile minerals to help shield domestic manufacturers from cheaper Chinese competition.
This is particularly acute when it comes to rare earths with China accounting for around 60% of mining output and more than 90% of global rare earths refining capacity.
The Trump administration has doubled down on efforts to diversify its mineral supplies, especially for rare earths, after American manufacturers faced supply shortages last year when China expanded export restrictions amid trade tensions with Washington.
Rare earths are pivotal to producing magnets that are used in wind turbines, electric vehicle motors as well as many other advanced technologies. Both countries reached a deal to lift the restrictions on supplies but some limits are still in place despite the truce.
“We just can’t be in a position where our entire economy… is in a position to be held hostage by someone that could change the world economy through a form of export controls,” US Secretary of the Interior Burgum said on Tuesday.
Yet, for many resource-rich countries, the US’s national security strategy poses the biggest risk to global supply chain stability, said Cory Combs, head of critical mineral research at advisory firm Trivium China.
Ultimately, global efforts to diversify mineral value chain mean China will lose market share. “But it’s not going to lose its advantages,” he told Climate Home News.
“Industry will still buy every Chinese material they can possibly get their hands on, because it’s cheaper, it’s better, it’s faster and more reliable when you don’t have the export controls,” he said.
Project Vault
To help shore up mineral reserves in the short-term, President Donald Trump announced the establishment of a US critical mineral reserve earlier this week.
Project Vault will “ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage – we never want to go through what we went through a year ago,” he said.
The US Export-Import Bank is providing up to $10 billion in loans – the largest deal in the bank’s history – to procure and store minerals in warehouses across the US for manufacturers to use in case of a supply shock.
Dozens of companies have committed an additional $1.67bn in private capital to build up the reserve. EV battery manufacturer Clarios, GE Vernova, which produces wind turbines and grid electrification technologies, as well as carmakers Stellantis and General Motors and planemaker Boeing have said they would participate.
Mineral analysts warn that stockpiling might be a short-term solution to securing minerals but in the case of rare earths it could in fact deepen reliance on Beijing if Chinese supplies remain the cheapest on the market and are therefore used to fill the vault.
