The New Critical Minerals Map |
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Worried about China’s powerful trade leverage, U.S. President Donald Trump wants to rally a coalition of countries to break Beijing’s grip on many of the world’s mineral supply chains.
Yet for much of the world, the United States isn’t exactly a reliable partner, either.
Worried about China’s powerful trade leverage, U.S. President Donald Trump wants to rally a coalition of countries to break Beijing’s grip on many of the world’s mineral supply chains.
Yet for much of the world, the United States isn’t exactly a reliable partner, either.
It’s no secret that China has wielded its supply chain grip against others in trade spats, particularly when it comes to rare earths. But after the Trump administration has spent months wreaking havoc on global trade and imposing on-again, off-again tariffs on key trade partners, world leaders have grown wary of becoming too dependent on Washington, too.
Many of those countries are now looking to each other. Even as the Trump administration goes all-in on critical minerals, there has been a flurry of trade deals that exclude both Beijing and Washington—underscoring just how unreliable of a reputation the United States has developed in the global marketplace.
“Because of the political risk associated with aligning with China or with the United States, there’s developing this patchwork of critical minerals agreements that have nothing to do with either” country, said Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Critical minerals—which in the United States are a set of 60 raw materials deemed essential to U.S. economic and national security by U.S. agencies, and which include rare earth elements—have emerged as a major geopolitical focal point as recent trade spats make........