Leaders at the Group of Seven summit in France laid out a plan Wednesday to reduce reliance on Beijing for rare earths and critical minerals, including coordinating stockpiling and launching a new platform that relies on the International Energy Agency.
Member countries in a joint statement stopped short of mentioning China directly but called on countries to reduce reliance on any single source outside the group for raw materials needed to make everything from wind turbines to fighter jets.
China currently controls rare-earth mining and processing and has throttled global supply chains with export restrictions, forcing a reckoning for the U.S. and its allies.
“We aim to significantly reduce our dependencies on a single supplier outside the G7 and partner countries for rare earths and permanent magnets to under 60 per cent by 2030 and continuing to decrease further over time, with an ambition to reach 50 per cent as soon as possible,” the group wrote.
President Donald Trump attended the summit, which has been dominated by discussions about a potential Iran peace deal and support for Ukraine, as well as other talks about collaboration on minerals and discussions about artificial intelligence.
In the joint statement, G7 members vowed to coordinate their work on stockpiling minerals. The Trump administration is working with private industry to help establish “Project Vault” to stockpile minerals using a $10 billion federal loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
The countries agreed to share information on stockpiling systems and rely on guidance from the IEA Critical Minerals Security Programme and initiatives such as the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security. The countries also announced the launch of a program with IEA’s help to alert G7 members of “future market stress or disruption in supply or demand.”
G7 leaders also announced the launch of a “platform” for critical minerals cooperation to bolster coordination and data sharing.
The platform will rely on the IEA and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for data on market developments, supply chain vulnerabilities, stockpiles, emergency exercises, and to monitor financing and transparency commitments.
The countries also vowed to ramp up the process of tracing and tracking minerals throughout the supply chain starting with lithium and nickel, and eventually expanding that work to five new minerals each year “with particular attention given to rare earths.”
