Driven by both the new energy transition and technological competition, the strategic value of critical minerals has surged dramatically. Minerals such as rare earths, lithium, cobalt, and copper are not only core materials for green energy but also form the security foundation for cutting-edge industries and national defense, having risen to become the highest priority issue in great power rivalry. From the launch of its first multilateral mechanism, the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), in 2022 to the official inauguration of FORGE (Forum on Geostrategic Engagement for Resources) in February 2026, the United States has marked a significant transformation in its critical minerals strategy from "multilateral coordination" to an "institutional alliance." The geopolitical alliance promoted by FORGE is escalating the China-U.S. relationship regarding critical minerals into full-scale confrontation.
As a global technological and military hegemonic country, the United States has been building the MSP critical mineral strategic system since 2022. Under the narrative guise of "de-risking", this system aims to weaken China's dominant position in the global critical mineral sector through resource integration, technological monopoly, rule restructuring and exclusive cooperation. However, with the intensification of great power competition and geopolitical conflicts, the practical effect of MSP has been very limited.
01: The risk of critical mineral supply has endangered the maintenance of technological hegemony
The hollowing out of American industries has led to a decline in domestic mining and processing capacity. For example, the production of natural graphite has ceased since the 1950s. The shrinking capacity has resulted in weak cost competitiveness; for instance, the guaranteed price of neodymium-praseodymium oxide set by the U.S. Department of Defense is approximately $110 per kilogram, which is about twice the market price in China. The replacement cycle for friend-shoring projects is long. For example, the development cycle of rare earths in Australia and lithium mines in Canada is 5 to 10 years. The U.S. "2025 National Security Strategy" explicitly lists "the security of critical mineral supply chains" as a priority, attempting to lock the economic dividends of energy transition and technology industries in the country by controlling resources, which has become the core focus for promoting industrial reshoring and strengthening the resilience of domestic industrial chains.
02: MSP has little effect on getting rid of the supply risks of critical minerals
On February 6, 2026, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released the latest edition of its annual mineral commodities report, which pointed out that the United States is 100% dependent on imports for 16 kinds of minerals and more than 50% dependent on imports for 54 kinds of minerals. China is the main source country for most of the United States' critical mineral products. Another major source country, Canada, supplies aluminum, gallium, potassium and zinc to the United States, while Chile and Mexico supply copper and silver to the United States respectively. China's dominant position in the processing of rare earths, gallium, germanium and other minerals is extremely difficult to replace in the short term, and it is difficult for the United States to completely solve the dependency problem through subsidies and alliances.
China's "bottleneck control" in the processing and supply of critical minerals constitutes a core risk to the U.S. supply chain. In the field of critical mineral smelting and processing, China has patent and scale advantages in material formulas and continuous production processes, thereby forming technical and cost barriers. Newly built production capacities in the United States face a 3-5 year ramp-up period and lack support from supporting industrial chains. Taking rare earths as an example, China leads in core technologies such as extraction separation and ion exchange, while the United States lacks large-scale refining capabilities domestically, and the MP Materials rare earth separation project requires long-term subsidies. From 2024 to 2025, China implemented export controls on key mineral products such as gallium, germanium, antimony, and medium-heavy rare earths, directly affecting U.S. military and semiconductor production capacities.
From MSP to FORGE, the United States is accelerating the upgrading of its global strategy for critical minerals
With the intensification of global competition and the upgrading of its own strategic needs, the Democratic Biden administration established the U.S. critical minerals multilateral mechanism "MSP (Minerals Security Partnership)" in June 2022. In January 2025, after Republican Trump began his second term as U.S. President, he systematically reset the MSP under the principle of "America First". The upgraded version of MSP, FORGE, launched in February 2026, marks the official establishment of the MAGA version of the U.S. global strategy for critical minerals.
In June 2022, the MSP was established, with its initial members including 14 countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India, as well as the European Union. It focuses on clean energy minerals like lithium, rare earths, and cobalt, and promotes the diversification of supply chains through dialogue and project collaboration.
In April 2024, the United States and Europe launched the Minerals Security Partnership Forum (MSP Forum). It expanded its partners, strengthened the connection of projects with high ESG standards, established a dual-track promotion mechanism of project teams and policy teams, and accelerated the implementation of strategic mineral projects such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths, copper, germanium, and gallium. The strategic intention is to "de-risk" the supply chain, marking the shift of the US and the West from "internal coordination" to "global resource integration".
In July 2024, the first MSP Forum High-Level Meeting was held, releasing a cooperation roadmap and enhancing supply chain resilience through institutionalized collaboration. It was announced that the first batch of 8 resource countries (Argentina, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Peru, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Mexico, Greenland) would join EU Trade.
In September 2024, the United States took the lead in establishing the Minerals Security Partnership Finance Network (MSP Finance Network), integrating official development financial institutions (DFIs), export credit agencies (ECAs) from MSP member countries, and private institutions (such as BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, with assets under management exceeding 30 trillion US dollars). It aims to promote supply chain restructuring through joint financing, information sharing, and ESG collaboration.
In July 2025, the United States, Japan, India, and Australia launched the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative (QCMI). Focusing on rare earths, lithium, cobalt, etc., its core goal is to reduce the four countries' dependence on China for critical mineral raw materials from 78% to below 40% by 2030 and build a regional closed loop of "mining - processing - recycling". The division of labor among the four countries is as follows: the United States is responsible for "rule-making + financial support + market"; Australia is responsible for lithium/rare earth mining (such as the Mount Weld mine); Japan is responsible for "refining technology + recycling"; and India is responsible for "resource potential + labor".
In September 2025, the "Future Mine Program" was launched. This is the first large-scale investment by the United States in mining technology research and development in nearly 40 years. The initial total investment of the program is 95 million U.S. dollars, with technologies focusing on intelligent mining, green mineral processing, in-situ leaching, deep-sea mining, tailings resource recovery, and efficient utilization of low-grade ores, etc. By developing the next generation of mining technologies, it aims to reshape U.S. leadership in the mining industry and build an autonomous and secure domestic supply chain for critical minerals.
In October 2025, the G7 (Group of Seven) put forward the concept of a "Rare Earth Alliance". It aims to reduce the G7's dependence on China's rare earth processed products from 85% to below 30% by 2030. The measures include setting a price floor for off-take agreements and providing government guarantees for long-term procurement; establishing a $13 billion joint fund with supporting sovereign funds, which will be prioritized for investment in separation/refining projects in Canada, Australia, and the United States; and forming a division of labor featuring "mining (Canada/Australia) + separation and refining (the United States/Japan) + magnet manufacturing (Japan/Germany) + recycling (the European Union)".
In December 2025, the "Silicon Peace Declaration" was signed. The division of labor among the allied countries formed a "chip iron triangle" consisting of "Japan and South Korea (manufacturing/materials) + the Netherlands (ASML lithography machines) + the United States (design/equipment)"; "Australia (lithium/rare earth mining) + Canada (cobalt/nickel) + the United States (strategic reserves)" replaced China's processing links; "Israel (algorithms/security) + the United Arab Emirates (sovereign fund) + Singapore (data center)" provided technical and financial support. A joint research and development fund of 10 billion U.S. dollars was established, with the goal of increasing the "non-China dependence" in core areas to 80% within 3 years.
The G7 Finance Ministers' Meeting was held in January 2026. Resource and consumer countries such as Australia, India, South Korea, and Mexico attended the meeting, covering approximately 60% of the global demand for critical minerals. The goal of the meeting is to reduce the proportion of rare earth imports from China by 50% within three years, with a focus on reducing dependence on medium and heavy rare earths, and relying on non-Chinese sources to ensure supply in the short term. The United States, through the G7 mechanism, will share the costs. Drawing on Japan's rare metal reserve system, it will establish a joint reserve of critical minerals among "G7 + allies" by 2027 to enhance supply resilience.
On January 14, 2026, Trump signed a presidential proclamation, determining that the reliance on critical mineral supply chains constitutes a national security risk in accordance with Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and authorized the initiation of negotiations and subsequent restrictive measures. It requires allies and trading partners to reach a critical mineral supply chain agreement with the United States within 180 days (by July 13, 2026) to promote the "de-Chinaization" of the supply chain. If no agreement is reached, "remedial measures" such as tariffs and quotas will be directly implemented without additional review.
The "Project Vault" was launched on February 2, 2026. Adopting a public-private partnership model of "10 billion U.S. dollars in government loans (from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, with a 15-year term) plus 2 billion U.S. dollars in private capital", it aims to establish a strategic reserve of industrial-grade critical minerals modeled after the oil reserve mechanism. A 60-day emergency reserve will be set up, covering 35 kinds of critical minerals such as rare earths, gallium, cobalt, lithium, nickel, and graphite. In collaboration with the G7, it plans to impose a 15%-20% "tariff + carbon border tax" on Chinese rare earths and set a price floor for products like neodymium-iron-boron.
On February 4, 2026, the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Cooperation (FORGE) was launched at the Ministerial Conference on Critical Minerals. With "supply chain diversification" as its public goal, it is supported by a "Critical Minerals Preferential Trade Group", a "price floor mechanism" and a "treasury plan", forming a combined strategy of "alliance + rules + reserves" to reduce China's dominance in the field of critical minerals. Fifty-four countries and the European Union are participating, with South Korea serving as the first rotating chair (until June 2026).
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly stated in February 2026 that the old order characterized by globalization and unipolar dominance after the Cold War has completely ended, and the world has officially entered a "new geopolitical era." The global critical mineral supply chain is rapidly splitting from an "integrated market" into two parallel systems: a "de-China" security circle led by the United States and a multi-cooperative circle with China at its core, with a comprehensive decoupling in supply chains, resource-rich countries, logistics channels, and pricing rules.
01: Supply Chain Camp Formation
The United States has upgraded critical minerals from "commodities" to "camp-based strategic assets" and is restructuring the global resource order in the name of "national security." As can be seen from the replacement of MSP by FORGE, the United States is attempting to leverage the remaining influence of its "global hegemony," using both carrots (temptations of markets and subsidies) and sticks (tariffs and military coercion) to build a global critical minerals industrial division system that serves the United States and a parallel supply chain independent of China. The FORGE strategic framework is filled with the United States' extreme egoistic calculations and also reveals the paradox between its national strength and ambitions. Against the backdrop of a record $36 trillion fiscal deficit, the original intention of the U.S.-led alliance is to let member states share the costs and use limited government subsidies to leverage massive private capital investment. The cold fact is that private capital is focused on the capital market dividends driven by government subsidies rather than the so-called "supply chain security." From a global perspective, China is not only an important market on a par with the United States but also an absolute leader in critical mineral processing. The cost of starting anew away from China is an insurmountable gap. On February 6, 2026, when Argentina signed a critical minerals agreement with the United States, it clearly stated that the Argentina-U.S. trade agreement could not exclude China.
02: Escalating Game among Resource-rich Countries
Control over upstream resource-rich countries is a key part of the U.S. strategy. In the year since the Trump administration took office, it has signed critical mineral agreements with Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, four Southeast Asian countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines), two Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan), as well as Japan, through tariffs and military coercion. It has also conducted armed intervention in Venezuela, aiming to eliminate China's global key mineral cooperation pivots. However, the rising sense of sovereignty among developing resource-rich countries worldwide has become a barrier to deep U.S. involvement. The Cape Town Mining Conference in Africa advocates a shift from "raw material exports" to "local refining + manufacturing"; in South America, Chile and Mexico have announced the nationalization or state monopoly of lithium mines, requiring foreign capital to form joint ventures and conduct local smelting; Indonesia has tightened nickel ore exports to exchange resources for industrial development. The in-depth contradiction between the demands of developing resource-rich countries and the "America First" concept has made "taking sides" the response of more countries. In particular, the scramble for Greenland has opened a "Pandora's box" that tears apart the relations between the United States and its EU allies.
The competition for nodes in global critical mineral logistics corridors is an important means for the United States to contain China's dominance in critical minerals. The United States attempts to launch a comprehensive challenge against China in global logistics corridors and key transportation nodes. The U.S. government has funded the construction of new Western corridors in West Africa, vigorously promoting the development of the Lobito Corridor and the Atlantic Corridor, forcibly diverting African copper, cobalt, and high-quality iron ore resources from Indian Ocean routes to the Atlantic Ocean. The United States has set off a global scramble for ports, from the battle for the operating rights of the Panama Canal, the spreading of rumors about Peru's Chancay Port, the dispute over the lease of Australia's Darwin Port, to the tanker incident in the Strait of Malacca in Singapore and the military threat against Iran to compete for control of the Strait of Hormuz, all of which are manipulated by the United States. At the same time, the United States is engaged in a race in the Arctic and deep seas, with Greenland rare earths and deep-sea polymetallic nodules becoming new battlefields.
04: Pricing Power and the Fragmentation of Trade Rules
Faced with China's unrivaled cost advantages in critical mineral products, the United States has replaced market pricing with political pricing by introducing a dual-track pricing system. It has set a price floor within the Western camp and imposed anti-dumping regulatory tariffs externally to squeeze China's export advantages. Meanwhile, it has established standard barriers, excluding Chinese minerals and processed products from subsidy and access lists on the grounds of ESG, human rights, and supply chain security. Ironically, Reuters reported on January 28 that the Trump administration is withdrawing from the "Critical Minerals Minimum Price Plan" due to a lack of congressional funding and the complexity of setting market prices. Congress believes that the price floor may force the government to subsidize minerals when market prices fall, thereby exposing taxpayers to significant financial risks. Under U.S. procurement, trade, and budget laws, guaranteeing a minimum price is regarded as a market distortion and lacks explicit congressional authorization. The purpose of such a policy, which cannot even be implemented domestically, to shift to an alliance is nothing more than to make allies and members foot the bill. The minimum price limit model will ultimately cause the cost of the global industrial chain to rise by 30%–50%. This fragmentation is not only a direct product of the return of geopolitics but also poses challenges to China in building the resilience of its critical mineral industrial chain.
The United States' formation of a critical minerals alliance is a concentrated manifestation of major-country strategic competition in the field of resources. Its essence is to restructure the global supply chain and governance order through an exclusive "small circle," which has a dual impact on China's critical minerals security and industrial development. China should rely on its own advantages in the entire industrial chain, coordinate domestic resource guarantees and international cooperation, break through barriers through technological innovation, counter camp formation through multilateral cooperation, enhance its right to speak through participation in rule-making, and build a safe, diversified, and resilient critical minerals security system as well as a new pattern of mutually beneficial and win-win international cooperation in critical minerals.
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2026-04-21
2026-04-21
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