US Vice President JD Vance yesterday unveiled plans to marshal allies into a preferential trade bloc for critical minerals, proposing co-ordinated price floors as Washington escalates efforts to loosen China’s grip on materials crucial to advanced manufacturing.
China has wielded its chokehold on the processing of many minerals as geo-economic leverage, at times curbing exports, suppressing prices and undercutting other countries’ ability to diversify sources of the materials used to make semiconductors, electric vehicles and advanced weapons.
Trump on Monday launched a US strategic stockpile of critical minerals, called Project Vault, backed by $10 billion in seed funding and $2bn in private funding.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said 55 countries attended the talks in Washington, among them South Korea, India, Thailand, Japan, Germany, Australia and Congo, all with varying refining or mining capabilities.
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