Trump Signs Critical Minerals Agreement With Australia
With China trying to control the rare earths and critical minerals market, Australia hopes to become “a viable alternative” for countries.
President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical minerals agreement to counter China, which is holding tight to its own rare earth metals.
According to Bloomberg, Australia “holds the world’s fourth-largest deposits of rare earths.”
With China trying to control the rare earths and critical minerals market, Australia hopes to become “a viable alternative” for countries.
Australia has these key elements:
- Neodymium and praseodymium: needed for high-strength magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines
- Dysprosium and terbium: needed for magnets used in high temperatures
- Lanthanum and cerium: used in catalytic converters and batteries
- Europium and gadolinium: needed for phosphors used in screens and medical imaging
- Samarium: used in high-temperature permanent magnets and lasers
Trump told the media that the U.S. and Australia have worked on the deal for four to five months, too.
“In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them,” Trump added.
Albanese told Trump that Australia has an $8.5 billion pipeline ready to start drilling for minerals and elements.
President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sign Critical Minerals Agreement. pic.twitter.com/mNNQHa6rTK
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 20, 2025
President Trump announces a new deal with Australia on critical and rare earth minerals:
"In about a year from now, we'll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won't know what to do with them—they'll be worth about 2 dollars." pic.twitter.com/7jqf0yvmsC
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 20, 2025
As I wrote a few weeks ago, Trump threatened China with a 100% tariff on China when he learned the communist country planned to hold rare earth minerals hostage.
The fight started in March with an executive order “invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA) to accelerate domestic production of critical minerals.”
China answered with export restrictions in April. The communist country took further steps in July by imposing tighter controls on “technologies vital to battery manufacturing and critical mineral processing.”
Then, in July, China limited the flow of critical minerals to Western defense manufacturers, hampering the development of drones.
Well, the U.S. answered back by pouring almost $1 billion into “developing technologies for mining, processing, and manufacturing critical minerals in this country.”
Another Trump executive order has allowed the country “to accelerate deep-sea mining by expediting permits and reviews for seabed mineral extraction in both U.S. and international waters.”
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Good for Australia. Good for the U.S.. Good for the rest of the world.
Bad for the ChiComs that tried to corner the market.
Think this would have happened under Harris?
Harris and the democrats would have ceded the world minerals to China and sold them control of our lands where the metals reside. Either that or blocked development because of the green insanity.
It’s great to see most of the rare earth elements referred to by name.
Do Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, and Lutetium have industrial or strategic uses?
And now, some comic relief from Tom Lehrer, who passed away this year….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3NOQnsQM
While good for Australia, and theoretically good for America, can Australia actually be relied on?
The current government are Leftists, the current opposition basically split between those who want to be Left and seem more interest in being opposition leaders, and those who want to be Right and offer voters alternatives to Leftist policies. Factor in the Left’s preference for aligning with the CCP, and the media’s fundamental divide between Far Leftists and merely Leftists, and it’s not clear Australia will remain a friend to America.