> UK, EU, and Australia are going to stockpile REE's if they don't have the capability to process the ore
They do. The issue has been price. They only began working on building an ExChina supply chain 2019 onwards, and this current G7+ announcement is part of that larger strategy that officially began under Biden but has been cooking for years.
Why is a minimum price more important that a maximum one with guaranteed supply quotas?
And who trusts the US for that?
> “This is about trust. You sign a deal and you trust it will apply,” said an EU source. “This constant threat of more tariffs, whether 10% because of Greenland or 200% on champagne because they don’t sign up to the ‘board of peace’ has to stop.”
Yea. I guess its just theater to calm trump and to guarantee profit margins.
Previous attempts to set up a supply chain for these minerals in the West have repeatedly failed because the economics didn't work out. If China can sell a batch of samarium at a lower cost than what a Western firm would spend to extract it, you simply can't run the business without a minimum price or equivalent ongoing subsidy.
> And who trusts the US for that?
The US is the largest consumer and could be a major supplier of these minerals. Their position on this issue is relevant regardless of trust.
This is the question - what form of subsidy to use? You seem to imply they're all the same but that isn't true. For example, farming is subsidized in the US without mandating minimum prices - there seem to be good reasons for that but why are minerals so much different as to warrant a different approach which is significantly more disruptive to competition and thus to market forces?
> The US is the largest consumer and could be a major supplier of these minerals. Their position on this issue is relevant regardless of trust.
That statement is irrelevant to the quote it replied to. The issue was trust regarding agreement-breaking tariff and other trade policies which turn any agreement into a one-sided tool for achieving market domination - that is, when one side conforms to agreements and the other doesn't, that other side is effectively dictating its conditions to the rest. This should be quite obvious but what do I know.
> That statement is irrelevant to the quote it replied to.
I don't think that's true, unless the quote was meant as a snippy aside that's irrelevant to the source article. If the US wants to talk about critical minerals, you can (probably should!) be skeptical of any promises or commitments the current administration makes, but refusing to talk isn't a realistic option.
They're talking to China too, to be clear. The EU hosted talks in October. However, the Chinese position on the matter is pretty clear: they're happy to export these minerals for civilian applications, but they don't want to supply foreign militaries, and they're going to enact whatever restrictions are necessary to ensure that stops happening.
Most countries are adopting a Production Linked Incentive model for REEs which Vietnam [1] and India [0] are using to build our capacity, as both face active military disputes against China, and have been supported by Japanese [2] and Korean [3] processing tech transfers and JVs.
Western countries like Australia and the US are adopting similar strategies, which is the point of the summit mentioned.
> The issue was trust regarding agreement-breaking tariff and other trade policies which turn any agreement into a one-sided tool for achieving market domination
The issue is China has already [4] done [5] this [6] for over a decade [7].
As such, most countries (especially Asian countries where the majority of the electronic supply chain exist) are fine working with the US because China is an existential threat that wishes to invade them.
The EU used to be on the fence but Chinese leadership's constant undermining [8] of the EU [9] as an institution [10] led the EU to get on board as well.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/india-...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/vietnam-aims-rai...
[2] - https://trei.co.in/
[3] - https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2025-08-20/busines...
[4] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-firms-brace-more-shut...
[5] - https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zwgk/zcfb/art/2026/art_8990fedae8f...
[6] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitig...
[7] - https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/senkaku_crisis.pdf
[8] - https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316875/ch...
[9] - https://www.ft.com/content/1ed0b791-a447-48f4-9c38-abbf5f283...
[10] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/asie-pacifique/2025/12/16/...
For those of us in the NatSec space, our interests are largely aligned. This is why you see people like Doshi, Mastro, Colby, and others pushing for similar policies despite working under different admins.
The Chinese government has been running an ongoing disinfo campaign against Western attempts at building an ExChina REE supply chain for years [0].
Finally, China de facto blocked REE exports to all Western and Western aligned nations in 2025 - not just the US - with the EU [1], Japan [2], and India [3] facing severe export controls as a result.
[0] - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-firms-brace-more-shut...
[2] - https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zwgk/zcfb/art/2026/art_8990fedae8f...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitig...
This is why ExChina is the name-of-the-game in the REE space, becuase this risk has been something most of us in the space recognized would occur since 2011 during the Senkaku-Diaoyu standoff, and finally got backing during the Biden admin.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-firms-brace-more-shut...
[1] - https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-rare-earth-campaign-aga...
[2] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-taking-steps-mitig...
They didn't block exports, they required government permission for export. [1]
And that happened after 150% tariffs on China and the ban of exporting EUV semiconductor equipment to them. China's response was a quite normal negotiation tactic given the chapter of "The Art of the Deal" which was being used against them.
"On 4 April 2025, as one of the responses to US President Donald Trump’s administration’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, China introduced export controls on seven heavy REEs (with licensing requirements), as well as on all related compounds, metals and magnets. Exporters are required to obtain a licence, and need to provide information on the end users of REEs" [1]
Then the tariffs normalized somewhat but the EUV ban remains, nevertheless China repealed the licensing on rare-earths as a sign of good will - only to be blamed for... the policies of others which have shown to bring only suffering, poverty and wars.
> This is why ExChina is the name-of-the-game in the REE space, because this risk has been something most of us in the space recognized would occur since 2011
Subsidies are normal in the West, it's not China's fault that the West didn't subsidize rare-earths for many years. The issue here is excusing other risky policies (erratic tariffs, hostile trade restrictions, etc) with a country that simply provided what they were asked to provide.
[1] https://epthinktank.eu/2025/11/24/chinas-rare-earth-export-r...
> China repealed the ban on rare-earths as a sign of good will
This is the crux of the issue. To Indian, Japanese, European, and policymakers of other affected nations even taking such an attempt against them burnt all goodwill to China.
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Following the export controls in 2025, the decision was made in most countries to expand the development of an ExChina supply chain.
It's not. I clearly stated that developing an REE supply chain outside of China had to be done a lot earlier.
The crux of the issue is these countries are blaming China for the fragility of the supply chain instead of blaming themselves for their tardiness while thanking China for sending a clear message - "develop your own sheet, we are afraid of running out ourselves".
I'm talking politics 101 but, by default, you're stuck on "blame China" which is how we fail to fix the real problems - they don't come from China.
Not subsidizing REE earlier was a dumb decision, doing it belatedly by way of hostile alliances against the single, long time and rather benevolent supplier is another folly.
Include China in the negotiations, its a simple matter! Too bad the "China bad" attitude is so addictive that it excludes rational thinking.