Artificial intelligence, critical minerals and energy exports will be on the agenda as President Donald Trump heads to France next week for the G7 summit.
The Trump administration wants to boost U.S. leadership on AI, secure mineral-reliant supply chains and promote American exports at the summit from June 15 to 17 in France, a White House official said.
The Group of Seven summit convenes leaders from Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Canada, the U.K. and the European Union. Trump last week confirmed in a Truth Social post that he plans to attend.
In addition to general trade and security talks, the White House official said critical minerals will be a focal point, as well as “promoting innovation and the adoption of AI technology that the United States is leading the world in developing.”
Trump earlier this month inked an executive order that seeks to tackle potentially catastrophic cybersecurity threats posed by AI. The directive requires some AI companies to undergo a voluntary federal review before releasing their products to the public, and calls on federal officials to establish a “cybersecurity clearinghouse” to address vulnerabilities uncovered by the new AI models.
The order, however, calls for less-advanced government scrutiny than the White House had previously considered.
Riki Parikh, the policy director at the Alliance for Secure AI, a bipartisan nonprofit, said he would like to see mandatory safeguards in place and hopes Trump at the G7 pushes other countries to adopt stricter protections as they counter China. “The best way to beat China and increase … adoption of American AI, is to make sure that it’s trustworthy,” he said.
Discussions about how Western countries can counter China’s grip on critical minerals and rare earths have been ramping up ahead of next week’s gathering. China has restricted exports of rare earths to counter U.S. tariffs.
Despite reassurances from the White House last month that Trump clinched a rare earths deal after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, nothing concrete has yet emerged.
Last month, French leaders gathered with G7 countries online to discuss China’s control over critical minerals, and France is pushing forward with a plan to build a rare earths and magnets chain.
G7 trade ministers in a joint communiqué last month expressed “grave concerns regarding economic coercion, including coercion through arbitrary export restrictions that may lead to supply chain disruptions, notably for critical minerals, and undermine economic security and resilience.”
The Trump administration has been working to forge a U.S.-led trading bloc with allies to counter Beijing, while also signing bilateral agreements. The U.S. and the EU earlier this year inked a deal to coordinate on minerals.
The White House did not respond when asked about a report from Reuters that G7 countries are in talks to create a permanent unit focused on critical minerals that could be housed within the International Energy Agency.
