{"id":320906,"date":"2025-10-21T10:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T10:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/320906\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T10:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T10:19:10","slug":"us-and-australia-sign-critical-minerals-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/320906\/","title":{"rendered":"US and Australia sign critical-minerals deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical-minerals deal at the White House on Monday as the U.S. eyes the continent\u2019s rich rare-earth resources at a time when China is imposing tougher rules on exporting its own critical minerals abroad. <\/p>\n

The two leaders described the agreement as an $8.5 billion deal between the allies. Trump said it had been negotiated over several months. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn about a year from now we\u2019ll have so much critical mineral and rare earth that you won\u2019t know what to do with them,\u201d said Trump, a Republican, boasting about the deal. \u201cThey\u2019ll be worth $2.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albanese added that the agreement takes the U.S.-Australia relationship \u201cto the next level.\u201d <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Beijing announced that it will require foreign companies to get approval<\/a> from the Chinese government to export magnets containing even trace amounts of rare-earth materials that originated from China or were produced with Chinese technology. The Trump administration says this gives China broad power over the global economy by controlling the tech supply chain. <\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia is really, really going to be helpful in the effort to take the global economy and make it less risky, less exposed to the kind of rare earth extortion that we\u2019re seeing from the Chinese,\u201d Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House\u2019s National Economic Council, told reporters Monday morning ahead of Trump\u2019s meeting with Albanese.<\/p>\n

Hassett noted that Australia has one of the best mining economies in the world, while praising its refiners and its abundance of rare earth resources. Among the Australian officials accompanying Albanese are ministers overseeing resources and industry and science, and Australia has dozens of critical minerals sought by the U.S. because they are needed in everything from fighter jets and electric vehicles to laptops and phones.<\/p>\n

A push for more mines<\/p>\n

The agreement could have an immediate impact on rare earth supplies in the United States if American companies can secure some of what Australian mines are already producing, although it will take years \u2014 if not decades \u2014 to develop enough of a supply of rare earths outside of China to reduce its dominance.<\/p>\n

Pini Althaus, who founded USA Rare Earth back in 2019 and is now working to develop new mines in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as CEO of Cove Capital, said it will be crucial that the contracts to buy materials from Australian mines include price floors, similar to what the U.S. government promised MP Materials<\/a> this summer, to protect against China manipulating prices. <\/p>\n

For decades, China has used the tactic of dumping excess critical minerals onto the market to drive prices down to force mining companies in the rest of the world out of business to eliminate any competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think taking away that arrow in the quiver of China to manipulate pricing is an absolute crucial first step in Australia and the West being able to develop critical minerals projects to meet our supply chain demands,\u201d said Althaus, who has spent nearly a quarter-century in the mining business.<\/p>\n

The agreement underscores how the U.S. is using its global allies to counter China, especially as it weaponizes its traditional dominance in rare earth materials. Top Trump officials have used the tactics from Beijing as a rallying cry for the U.S. and its allies to work together to try to minimize China\u2019s influence. <\/p>\n

\u201cChina is a command-and-control economy, and we and our allies will neither be commanded nor controlled,\u201d Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week. \u201cThey are a state economy and we are not going to let a group of bureaucrats in Beijing try to manage the global supply chains.\u201d<\/p>\n

The level of investment outlined in the agreement shows how serious the two nations are about addressing the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. and Australia will invest over $3 billion in joint critical minerals projects within six months. That\u2019s a somewhat unprecedented speed of capital injection,\u201d said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.<\/p>\n

But Althaus cautioned that Australia can\u2019t supply everything the United States needs, so it is crucial that American continues to invest<\/a> in the long-term effort to develop other mining and processing<\/a> projects both at home and in friendly nations. He said central Asia might be one of the most promising places to invest because the region has significant rare earth reserves, and the Soviet Union already did some of the initial development work when it controlled that territory. That could cut years off the time it will take to build a new mine there. <\/p>\n

\u201cKeep in mind, China has almost a 40-year head start on us,\u201d Althaus said. \u201cWe have at least a couple of decades to catch up to China in terms of being able to meet our own supply chain requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albanese\u2019s visit comes just before Trump is planning to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping<\/a> in South Korea later this month. <\/p>\n

The security partnership<\/p>\n

Another topic of discussion was AUKUS, a security pact with Australia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom<\/a> that was signed during U.S. President Joe Biden\u2019s Democratic administration.<\/p>\n

Trump noted Monday that AUKUS was established \u201ca while ago\u201d but that the agreement now is \u201cmoving along very rapidly, very well.\u201d Albanese said that \u201cour defense and security partnership with AUKUS is so important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Phelan, the Navy secretary, said that the U.S. wants to take the original AUKUS framework and improve it for the three signatory countries while clarifying \u201csome of the ambiguity\u201d in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it should be a win-win for everybody,\u201d Phelan said.<\/p>\n

In Beijing, the Chinese government reiterated its opposition to the pact, which would help Australia obtain and build nuclear-powered submarines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always oppose creating bloc confrontation, increasing nuclear proliferation risks and intensifying an arms race,\u201d Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The center-left Albanese was reelected in May and suggested shortly after his win<\/a> that his party increased its majority by not modeling itself on Trumpism.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralians have chosen to face global challenges the Australian way, looking after each other while building for the future,\u201d Albanese told supporters during his victory speech. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Josh Funk, Didi Tang and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical-minerals deal at the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":320907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[38602,13214,4740,46249,9710,64,74,13212,69,57,59,3464,13790,82,101933,34523,40176,50,80,18244,67,370,132,68,73792,93,107,11762],"class_list":{"0":"post-320906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-anthony-albanese","10":"tag-asia-pacific","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australia-government","13":"tag-beijing","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-china","16":"tag-china-government","17":"tag-donald-trump","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-inc","20":"tag-international-agreements","21":"tag-international-trade","22":"tag-joe-biden","23":"tag-john-phelan","24":"tag-kevin-hassett","25":"tag-mp-materials-corp","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-scott-bessent","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-government","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-usa-rare-earth","34":"tag-washington-news","35":"tag-world-news","36":"tag-xi-jinping"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115411652704761234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}