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:
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.
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.”
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