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On 19 March 2026, USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer and Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, METI, and Ministry of Finance jointly released the "United States-Japan Action Plan for Critical Minerals Supply Chain Resilience" — the operational follow-on to the 27 October 2025 US-Japan Framework. The Action Plan formally commits both governments to develop a plurilateral trade initiative in critical minerals "supported by price floors or other measures", to consult on embedding "border-adjusted price floors" in a binding plurilateral agreement, and to identify specific mining/processing/manufacturing projects in the US, Japan, or third countries for prioritised joint financing. It is the first formal US/Japan trade-policy commitment to administered floor-pricing as an instrument of critical-minerals trade governance, and explicitly invites third countries to join the contemplated plurilateral.

On 4 February 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE) at the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington, DC, attended by representatives from 54 countries and the European Commission. FORGE is the successor to the 2022 Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) and is structured as a plurilateral coalition that creates a preferential trade-and-investment zone for critical minerals, including coordinated price-floor mechanisms designed to counter adversarial market manipulation — explicitly framed against Chinese mineral-supply dominance. The Republic of Korea chairs FORGE through June 2026. Eleven bilateral critical-minerals frameworks/MoUs were signed simultaneously (Argentina, Cook Islands, Ecuador, Guinea, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, UAE, UK, Uzbekistan), and FORGE is paired with Project Vault, an EXIM Bank direct loan facility of up to USD 10 billion to back FORGE-aligned critical-mineral projects.

On 18 November 2025, during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's White House visit (17-19 November 2025), the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed a Strategic Framework for Cooperation on Securing Uranium, Metals, Permanent Magnets, and Critical Minerals Supply Chains. The framework was signed by US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Saudi Minister of Energy H.R.H. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, and positions Saudi Arabia (via Ma'aden + Public Investment Fund vehicles) as a regional hub for processing rare earths and producing permanent magnets, supports a US-backed rare-earths refinery in the Kingdom, and channels Saudi capital — alongside the broader USD ~1 trillion Saudi investment commitment in the US announced the same week — into US and allied critical-mineral projects. It is paired with a separate joint declaration on civil nuclear cooperation (Section 123 Agreement contemplated) and was operationalised one day later by the 19 November 2025 binding term sheet between MP Materials, the US Department of War, and Ma'aden to develop a rare-earth refinery in Saudi Arabia (Department of War financing the US side's 49% stake; Ma'aden retaining ≥51%).

On 6 November 2025, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) and the US Geological Survey (USGS) released the final 2025 List of Critical Minerals under the Energy Act of 2020 (30 U.S.C. § 1606), expanding the designation from 50 to 60 minerals. The final list adds 10 newly designated commodities — boron, copper, lead, metallurgical coal, phosphate, potash, rhenium, silicon, silver, and uranium — based on updated supply-chain disruption modelling, public comment, and interagency recommendations. The list constitutes the foundational statutory anchor for downstream US critical-minerals policy instruments including DPA Title III awards, DOE LPO Title 17 loan eligibility, IRA Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit eligibility, Section 30D FEOC determinations, BIS export-control predicate assessments, Section 232 trade-investigation predicates, and CFIUS critical-technology triggers under 31 CFR § 800.215.

On 27 October 2025, during the Trump-Takaichi Tokyo summit, the United States and Japan announced the "Framework for Securing the Supply of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths through Mining and Processing", signed by President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on 28 October 2025. The non-binding framework establishes a US-Japan Critical Minerals Supply Security Rapid Response Group co-led by the US Secretary of Energy and the Japanese METI Minister; commits both governments to provide financial support to selected mining and processing projects within six months via grants, guarantees, loans, equity, offtake arrangements, and insurance — mobilising DFC + EXIM (US side) with JOGMEC + JBIC (Japan side); develops a "mutually complementary stockpiling arrangement" leveraging existing national systems; and schedules a Mining, Minerals and Metals Investment Ministerial within 180 days. The framework was subsequently operationalised through the 19 March 2026 "United States-Japan Action Plan for Critical Minerals Supply Chain Resilience" jointly issued by USTR and METI.

On 26 October 2025 in Kuala Lumpur, on the margins of the ASEAN Summit, President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Cooperation to Diversify Global Critical Minerals Supply Chains. The MoU covers exploration, extraction, processing and refining, manufacturing, and recycling and recovery of critical minerals and rare earths, with explicit emphasis on domestic value-addition rather than raw-material exports. It establishes a working-level group meeting on a regular (quarterly or as-needed) basis, commits both sides to information-sharing on best practices and technical expertise, and includes a good-faith commitment to "develop authorities to review and deter certain critical-minerals asset sales on national-security grounds" — language that anticipates investment-screening regimes against Chinese-origin acquirers. The MoU is paired with (but separate from) a parallel Framework for a US-Thailand Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, also concluded the same day, under which Thailand commits to eliminate tariff barriers on ~99% of US goods in exchange for the US maintaining its 19% reciprocal-tariff rate on Thai imports.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14241 on 20 March 2025 (Federal Register publication 25 March 2025) invoking Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III sections 301, 302, and 303 — and selected Title VII authorities — for domestic critical-mineral production, and delegated those authorities to the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The order operationalises the "national energy emergency" declared by EO 14156 (Jan 2025) to waive certain DPA §303 congressional-notification thresholds, designates "mineral production" as an Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program priority, expands the EO definition of "critical minerals" to include uranium, copper, potash, gold (and any further item designated by the Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council), and directs the Departments of the Interior, Energy, Treasury, and EXIM Bank to mobilise federal lands, permitting, and financing to expand US upstream and midstream capacity. EO 14241 is the cross-cutting domestic-mineral umbrella authority of the second Trump administration, paired with FY2025 supplemental appropriations (USD 2bn National Defense Stockpile, USD 5bn Industrial Base Fund) and complemented by the 24 April 2025 follow-on EO on offshore minerals and the 8 April 2025 coal amendment.

Vietnam's 15th National Assembly adopted Law No. 54/2024/QH15 on Geology and Minerals on 29 November 2024 (446 of 448 votes), promulgated by Presidential Order on 20 December 2024 and effective 1 July 2025 (Articles 110.2 and 110.3 effective earlier on 15 January 2025). The law replaces the 2010 Mineral Law and introduces a four-group mineral classification, with Group I — covering metallic minerals (including rare earths), energy minerals, precious/semi-precious stones, and industrial minerals — placed under state-controlled licensing, national master-plan approval by the Prime Minister, and a "supply-the-domestic-industrial-ecosystem" priority that operates as a de-facto export curb on raw and minimally-processed strategic minerals. Vietnam holds the world's second-largest rare-earth reserves after China, making the new statute a foundational instrument for a state-controlled midstream gateway in non-China REE supply.

President Biden signed into law on 13 May 2024 the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act (Division H of the National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, Public Law 118-50). The law bans imports to the United States of unirradiated low-enriched uranium (LEU) produced in Russia or by Russian state entities, effective immediately, with a waiver mechanism allowing the Department of Energy to grant case-by-case exceptions through 2027 where no alternative supply is available. The law also authorised up to $2.72B to support US uranium enrichment capacity via CENTRUS and allied enrichment partnerships.