In Washington, the hottest new club is all about critical minerals.
Officials from more than 50 countries descended on Washington this week to attend the Trump administration’s inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial, marking one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s biggest pushes to forge new supply chains independent of China.
In Washington, the hottest new club is all about critical minerals.
Officials from more than 50 countries descended on Washington this week to attend the Trump administration’s inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial, marking one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s biggest pushes to forge new supply chains independent of China.
Speaking to dozens of officials from around the world at the event’s opening remarks on Wednesday, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance pitched a global minerals “preferential trade zone” that would use tariffs to set price floors—which would help shield supply chains from whipsawing prices or other market disruptions—and grant members access to critical minerals and financing.
“Together, 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,” Vance said.
“What is before all of us is an opportunity at self-reliance, that we never have to rely on anybody else, except for each other, for the critical minerals necessary to sustain our industries and to sustain growth,” he later added.
This represents one of the Trump administration’s most aggressive moves to secure new supply chains for critical minerals, or a set of approximately 60 raw materials deemed essential to U.S. economic and national security by U.S. agencies. These minerals underpin many of the world’s most powerful technologies, ranging from advanced weapons systems to green energy technologies.
The problem for the United States is that China commands many of these materials’ global supply chains and maintains an especially strong grip over rare earths, which it has leveraged against the Trump administration in trade talks. Trump’s White House isn’t the first U.S. administration to toy with the idea of a minerals partnership: The Biden administration also sought other partners in its mission to boost U.S. supply chain security, including by mulling a minerals club with U.S. allies. It also collaborated with 13 other countries and the European Union to create the Mineral Security Partnership, which aimed to catalyze investment for new mineral supply chains.
Since returning to office, Trump has made no secret of his global mineral ambitions. In early 2025, minerals appeared to steer his chaotic agenda in Ukraine, Canada, and Greenland, prompting countries to court him with deals spotlighting their own mineral capabilities. The Trump administration has also aligned its mineral scramble with its artificial intelligence ambitions, with the U.S. State Department recently convening a number of countries for its inaugural Pax Silica summit.
Trump is now ramping up his global campaign, even going so far as to explicitly link U.S. minerals security and international cooperation in a recent executive order. On Wednesday, U.S. officials announced agreements with Mexico, Japan, and the European Union to develop coordinated policies aimed at plugging the countries’ mineral vulnerabilities. On Thursday, British officials announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals with Washington, which will further align their supply chain efforts and encourage investment in the sector.
U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told an audience of industry and government officials at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C. think tank, on Tuesday that the administration plans to announce as many as 11 such bilateral agreements this week.
Minerals have emerged as a rare area of cooperation between the United States and countries around the world, many of which are still reeling from the Trump administration’s aggressive trade war. The United States’ ties with some of the countries that sent delegations to the ministerial, including Canada and European powers, are otherwise fraught—making minerals an elusive bright spot in relations.
The ministerial kicked off just days after Trump unveiled a $12 billion project to create a critical minerals stockpile aimed at cushioning American manufacturers from potential market disruptions and other supply shocks. The initiative, known as “Project Vault,” will be financed by a $10 billion direct loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and nearly $1.67 billion in private funding.
“For years, American businesses have risked running out of critical minerals during market disruptions,” Trump said when announcing the initiative in the Oval Office. The project will “ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage.”
All of these moves are coming as the U.S. leader has embraced state capitalism, with the U.S. government taking a series of equity stakes in private firms in the minerals space. Those firms say that the Trump administration’s support is essential to competing in the global marketplace, given China’s dominance.
“The Chinese have been subsidizing their mine-to-magnet, mine-to-battery supply chains for 30-plus years, and the only way we can compete is a public-private partnership,” said Pini Althaus, a managing partner at Cove Capital, a mining investment firm, and founder of USA Rare Earth. (Both Cove Capital and USA Rare Earth have struck deals with the Trump administration.)
Still, there are no quick fixes, and many of the details of Trump’s latest endeavors remain hazy. And industry analysts stress that establishing new supply chains will take years, if not decades, with the average global mine development timeline spanning 15 years.
“It took China a generation … to get to this point where they literally dominate most, if not all, the critical materials along the supply chain,” said Chris Berry, founder and president of House Mountain Partners, an independent metals analysis consultancy.
“We’re not going to have this solved during Trump’s term,” he said, “but we’re on the right track.”
