On 4 February, the US government convened a critical minerals ministerial in Washington DC. The meeting, attended by representatives of 54 countries, had the stated aim of securing supply chains for minerals central to high-tech chips, renewable-energy equipment and other advanced industries.
The ministerial brought a burst of activity: the launch of the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (Forge), the signing of ten bilateral agreements, and proposals for a critical minerals trading bloc underpinned by minimum prices for mined minerals.
Days earlier, President Trump had also announced Project Vault, an initiative to stockpile critical minerals backed by a US$10 billion loan from the US Export Import Bank, the largest in the bank’s history.
Toward the end of February, the issue surfaced again in US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference.
The intention behind these overlapping initiatives is clear: to break US reliance on China for critical minerals and rare earth elements.
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Given China’s entrenched position – the result of a long-term industrial strategy launched decades ago – the United States has significant catching up to do.
Cynthia Sanborn, director, Center for China and Asia-Pacific Studies
About half of the 54 countries at the ministerial were producer economies in the Global South. What might this new critical minerals push mean for their ambitions to move up the value chain?
In other words, could it help them switch from exporting to processing their ore and selling the refined products at higher prices? Or even to start manufacturing the final products the minerals go into, such as batteries or solar panels? The experts Dialogue Earth consulted are sceptical.
Revamped policies
February’s measures build on a Biden-era initiative, the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP). But they also differ significantly, says Cynthia Sanborn, director of the Center for China and Asia-Pacific Studies (CECHAP) at the Universidad del Pacífico in Peru.
While the MSP focused on coordinating between partners, the new initiatives are more explicitly aimed at building supply chains that exclude or bypass China. They are also, Sanborn notes, “security-oriented and more interventionist.”
“The new mechanisms and initiatives are not just trying to facilitate markets but to reconfigure and, to some extent, control them. This aligns closely with the broader direction of the US new national security policy, wherein critical supply chains such as semiconductors, energy technologies and now minerals are treated as areas that require active state coordination rather than purely market-driven outcomes.”
The context for these initiatives is clear, if unmentioned in official statements. China dominates critical minerals supply chains. It has an average market share of 70 per cent in 19 of the world’s 20 most important strategic minerals, according to the International Energy Association (IEA).
More specifically, China’s export controls on rare earth elements, introduced last year in response to US tariffs, sharply exposed US vulnerability in these supply chains. According to a recent South China Morning Post article, shortages of yttrium and scandium, the vast majority of which are imported from China, are beginning to put pressure on technology supply chains, including 5G chips and heat-resistant coatings for engines and turbines.
In theory, a pricing floor and trading bloc could encourage companies to invest in new mining and processing facilities. But experts told Dialogue Earth it is too early to tell how much these initiatives will reshape supply chains and mining projects around the world – not least because of China’s existing lead in both investment and technology. “Given China’s entrenched position – the result of a long-term industrial strategy launched decades ago – the United States has significant catching up to do,” Sanborn told Dialogue Earth.
New mining and processing facilities can also take decades to come online. Compounding this, it is unclear whether US policy will remain consistent – or whether governments and investors believe it will.
New opportunities or new complications for producer countries?
Across producer countries in the Global South, a major policy objective around critical minerals is to move up the value chain.
“A multilateral trading bloc doesn’t seem to move the needle on producer country ambitions or bottlenecks to value addition,” says Thomas Scurfield, Africa senior economic analyst at the National Resources Governance Institute (NRGI). In the African context, regional arrangements would be key to value addition, allowing countries to pool their respective strengths. Scurfield says the US emphasis on bilateral deals and a multilateral trading bloc could undermine or complicate those efforts.
This tension played out at the African Mining Indaba in Cape Town from 8 to 11 February, where South Africa’s mining minister Gwede Mantashe publicly criticised DR Congo for signing a bilateral minerals deal with the US, rather than coordinating with regional partners. ”We need to act as one collectively, and deal with the wealth that we have to the advantage of Africans,” President Cyril Ramaphosa told African Review in an interview on the sidelines of the AU summit.
Obert Bore, programmes manager at the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Organisation (ZELO), however, says that the shift could open certain doors. “We are likely to see a lot of deals between US and African governments, including governments the US was previously unwilling to engage with,” he told Dialogue Earth, pointing to sanctioned Zimbabwe as an example.
But he cautions that, compared to their Chinese counterparts, American miners likely lack the technological capacity to meet African countries’ value-addition requirements. Mineral refining capacity remains minimal in the US, and progress on new projects has been extremely slow. They could only do so by partnering with Chinese firms, who have far more experience, he says, but that is “not likely to happen.”
Similar dynamics are at play in Latin America. The US rush to secure minerals could offer new sources of finance, technology transfer, training and stable demand, Sanborn says. But the goal to move up value chains may continue to encounter deep structural constraints.
“The deeper question is whether access to US-led initiatives will depend on geopolitical alignment, potentially forcing countries to reconsider long-standing economic ties with China,” she says. Currently, China is by far the largest market for minerals mined in Latin America, including by American companies – a disruption to which could prove both politically and economically destabilising, Sanborn warns.
Environmental concerns
The urgency with which the US is pursuing these critical minerals policies raises social and environmental concerns. Mining is a sector frequently associated with risks such as community relocations, inadequate compensation for land and livelihoods, and environmental degradation.
“The sense of urgency related to security concerns can easily translate into faster permits, compressed review processes, and political pressure to move projects forward quickly”, says Sanborn. “In countries such as Peru, where institutions are already stretched and social tensions around mining remain high, this could weaken our environmental oversight and community consultation.” This, and the perception that geopolitics rather than livelihoods is the priority, risks intensifying tensions with local communities, she says.
Thomas Scurfield from NRGI adds that neglecting these concerns could also be counterproductive to the original goal of the policies: securing reliable supplies of critical minerals. “If you don’t develop trust or don’t embed transparency, it can come back to bite you,” he says. Tensions can become political pressure, which can in turn mean government-led pauses or renegotiations of contract terms or even project cancellations.
The Strategic Partnership Agreement signed between the US and DR Congo at the beginning of December, for example, is already facing legal challenges in Kinshasa’s Constitutional Court.
Scurfield also notes the opacity that surrounds the bilateral agreements signed in Washington DC on 4 February. None of the 10 signed agreements have been publicly released.
Conversely, Chinese mining companies, who have long been criticised for opacity and poor community engagement, have been improving their social and environmental standards overseas – at least on paper. “At home, environmental regulation, green finance rules, and corporate disclosure requirements have tightened significantly over the past decade,” says Sanborn.
Two examples include the community grievance mechanism issued by the Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters and a series of new guidelines issued by the China Mining Association. These marked the first attempt by a Chinese industry body to standardise ESG practices in the Chinese mining sector and bring them into greater alignment with international norms.
The frameworks are not legally binding, but they do “reflect growing awareness in China that overseas performance affects long-term commercial viability and geopolitical relations,” Sanborn adds.
How producer countries in the Global South engage with the increasing geopolitical competition for critical minerals may ultimately shape not just supply chains, but their own industrial futures.
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence.
