Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On April 30, 2026, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added former Democratic Republic of the Congo President Joseph Kabange Kabila to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List pursuant to Executive Order 13413, as amended by Executive Order 13671 (the DRC sanctions program), for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support to the March 23 Movement (M23) and its political-military coalition the Congo River Alliance (Alliance Fleuve Congo, AFC). Treasury press release SB0480 ("Treasury Sanctions Former Democratic Republic of the Congo President for Ties to Armed Conflict") frames the designation as enforcement of the Washington-brokered DRC-Rwanda framework: M23 controls a substantial share of mineral-rich eastern DRC (cobalt, coltan, tin, tungsten, gold) and AFC's renewed rebellion has fuelled a mass-displacement crisis. The notice was published in the Federal Register on May 5, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-08672). The designation blocks all property and interests in property of Kabila subject to US jurisdiction and prohibits US-person dealings with him. It is a discrete enforcement step under the broader US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement (4 December 2025 — the "Washington Accords") and complements earlier 2026 designations of Rwanda Defence Force-linked actors. Treasury frames the action as signalling that political support to M23/AFC, not just direct military or commercial activity, will trigger blocking sanctions.

On 27 April 2026, US Assistant Secretary of State Caleb Orr and Bolivian Mining Minister Marco Antonio Calderón signed a Critical Minerals Memorandum of Understanding in Washington DC, establishing a non-binding cooperation framework targeting lithium, cobalt, and copper supply chains. The MoU is the first major bilateral economic instrument between the US and Bolivia since the 2008–09 expulsion of the US Ambassador, marking a strategic realignment by the post-Paz government toward Western investment partnerships. The agreement commits both governments to attract private-sector investment to Bolivia's critical-minerals endowment — including the Salar de Uyuni lithium resource (~21 Mt LCE, world's largest identified reserve) — as operational follow-through to Bolivia's February 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial participation and the FORGE launch. It runs in parallel with Bolivia's domestic Proyecto de Ley del Litio (filed December 2025), which would open extraction-stage YLB operations to private partnership and introduce a progressive royalty structure.

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 19 February 2026 Presidents Trump and Prabowo finalised the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) between the United States and Indonesia. The deal locks the US reciprocal tariff on Indonesian imports at 19% (down from the 32% threatened in April 2025), with 0% on a defined list of products and a textile/apparel quota benchmarked to US-cotton/MMF inputs. Indonesia commits to remove export restrictions on all industrial commodities — explicitly including critical minerals across the full value chain — and to grant US investors national treatment in mineral exploration, mining, processing and export. Indonesia also agrees to eliminate tariff barriers on >99% of US-origin goods, while a Freeport-McMoRan MOU extends the Grasberg copper-mine licence (~USD 10bn/yr revenue, world's 2nd largest copper mine) and a parallel commercial package totalling ~USD 33bn (energy USD 15bn, aerospace incl. Boeing USD 13.5bn, agriculture USD 4.5bn) is signed alongside.

On 10 February 2026 in Baku, US Vice President JD Vance and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership — a foundational bilateral instrument covering five cooperation tracks: economy and trade, energy, connectivity and digital development (including AI), security and defense, and critical-minerals transit. The Charter commits both governments to facilitate the transit of critical minerals via the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor to global markets, and formally recognises the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) as the multi-modal connectivity link between mainland Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The instrument builds on the 8 August 2025 MoU signed in Washington during the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Summit that established the Strategic Working Group tasked with drafting the Charter, and marks the first US Vice-Presidential visit to Azerbaijan since Dick Cheney in 2008.

On 4 February 2026, in Washington, DC, Guinea's Minister of Mines and Geology Bouna Sylla and US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg signed an intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate on critical-mineral supply chains, covering exploration, extraction, processing, and downstream investment. The MoU was one of eleven founding-member bilateral instruments signed simultaneously at the inaugural FORGE (Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement) Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Guinea holds approximately 26% of global bauxite reserves (~3.7bn tonnes) and is the world's largest bauxite exporter and #2 alumina exporter, making it the choke-point upstream node for any non-Chinese aluminium value chain.

On 4 February 2026 USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer and Mexican Secretary of Economy Marcelo Ebrard announced a U.S.-Mexico Action Plan on Critical Minerals — a first-of-its-kind 60-day bilateral work programme to develop coordinated trade policies and supply-chain mechanisms for critical minerals. The Action Plan tasks both governments with identifying a priority mineral list, exploring border-adjusted price floors as a candidate trade instrument, and consulting on how price floors could be incorporated into a binding plurilateral agreement on trade in critical minerals. It is framed as a confidence- building measure ahead of the USMCA Joint Review (statutory deadline 1 July 2026) and as the Mexico-side template that parallels concurrent USTR engagements with the EU and Japan.

On 4 February 2026, in Washington, DC, the United States and the Kingdom of Morocco signed an intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate on critical-mineral and rare-earth supply chains, covering exploration, extraction, processing, and downstream investment. The MoU was one of eleven founding-member bilateral instruments signed simultaneously at the inaugural FORGE (Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement) Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Morocco holds approximately 70-75% of the world's known phosphate reserves and is a globally significant cobalt, copper, and nickel producer; the framework explicitly aims to attract Western investment into Moroccan downstream processing capacity rather than raw-mineral export.

On 4 February 2026, in Washington, DC, Peru and the United States signed an intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate on critical-mineral supply chains, covering exploration, extraction, processing, and downstream investment. The MoU was one of eleven founding-member bilateral instruments signed simultaneously at the inaugural FORGE (Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement) Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and USTR Jamieson Greer. Peru is the world's second-largest copper producer (~12% of mined supply), a top-two silver and zinc producer, the leading Latin American gold producer, and a globally significant source of tin, molybdenum, and lead — making it the most strategically important Latin American signatory of the FORGE founding cohort alongside Argentina.

On 4 February 2026, in Washington, DC, Philippine Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources Raphael P.M. Lotilla and US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg signed an intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate on diversifying global critical-mineral supply chains and to promote bilateral investment in mapping, survey, processing, refining, and recycling of critical minerals and rare earths. The MoU was one of eleven founding-member bilateral instruments signed simultaneously at the inaugural FORGE (Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement) Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The framework explicitly aims to push the Philippines' mining sector beyond raw-ore export toward domestic value-add and downstream processing.

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 4 February 2026, in Washington, DC, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov signed an intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding on Securing Supply in the Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths. The MoU was one of eleven founding-member bilateral instruments signed simultaneously at the inaugural FORGE (Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement) Critical Minerals Ministerial and supersedes the September 2024 Biden-era US-Uzbekistan critical-minerals MoU. On 18 February 2026, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and EXIM signed Heads of Terms with Uzbekistan's Ministry of Investment, Industry, and Trade and the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan establishing a Joint Investment Framework — including a proposed U.S.–Uzbekistan Joint Investment Holding Company — covering critical minerals (exploration, extraction, processing), infrastructure, and energy under a three-year Economic Cooperation Programme valued at up to USD 35bn.

On 2 February 2026 the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) Board approved a Direct Loan of up to USD 10 billion to an independently governed public-private partnership establishing the U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve ("Project Vault"), alongside nearly USD 2 billion of private-sector investment for an envelope of approximately USD 12 billion. The reserve will physically stockpile the 60 minerals on the USGS 2025 Critical Minerals List across multiple US storage facilities, with participating original equipment manufacturers (Clarios, GE Vernova, Western Digital, Boeing) committing to specific volumes and grades and trading partners (Hartree Partners, Mercuria Americas, Traxys) handling sourcing. EXIM characterises the transaction as the largest single financing in its 92-year history and the first use of EXIM authority as the financing vehicle for a domestic strategic-minerals stockpile rather than for export-credit insurance abroad.

On 14 January 2026 President Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 titled "Adjusting Imports of Processed Critical Minerals and Their Derivative Products into the United States". Unlike the parallel 14 January 2026 semiconductor proclamation and the subsequent April 2026 pharmaceutical proclamation, the PCMDP proclamation does NOT immediately impose tariffs. Instead it directs the Secretary of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative to jointly negotiate bilateral and plurilateral supply agreements with trading partners, with an initial 180-day status report due 13 July 2026. The proclamation reserves residual authority to impose tariffs if negotiations fail or prove ineffective, and explicitly contemplates "price floors" on PCMDP imports as a negotiated instrument.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (P.L. 119-60), signed into law on 18 December 2025, expands the Department of Defense's existing "covered materials" domestic- sourcing restriction (which already barred DoD contracting for SmCo/NdFeB magnets, tantalum and tungsten sourced from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea) to add gallium, germanium and molybdenum under Section 844. Restrictions on materials "melted or produced" in a covered nation take effect 31 December 2026, widening on 1 January 2027 to also cover materials "mined, refined, or separated" in a covered nation; the gallium/germanium additions specifically phase in on 18 December 2027. The same NDAA bundles two related supply-chain provisions: Section 867 gives DoD broader authority (contracts, grants, other-transaction agreements, equity-style investments, and anti-market-manipulation subsidies) to invest in the domestic industrial base for critical minerals, microelectronics, machine tools and other defense-relevant capacity, and Section 842 bars DoD from procuring advanced batteries whose cells or key components are owned, sourced, refined or produced by a foreign entity of concern, phased in 2028-2031.

On 4 December 2025, the United States and the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement on Trade and Investment, executed at a White House trilateral ceremony alongside the parallel U.S.-Rwanda framework and witnessed by President Trump, President Tshisekedi (DRC), and President Kagame (Rwanda). The Agreement creates a Strategic Minerals Reserve (SMR) and a Strategic Asset Reserve (SAR) under DRC sovereignty, gives U.S. persons preferential access to SAR assets, and commits DRC and its state-owned enterprises to route at least 30% of their commercialised cobalt volumes through the Sakania-Lobito Corridor within five years. A Joint Steering Committee (JSC) co-chaired by State and DRC's Ministry of Economy holds its inaugural meeting on 4-5 February 2026, designating the initial SAR asset list and launching implementation. The DFC announced a proposed equity investment in a Gécamines-Mercuria copper/cobalt joint venture as the first commercial vehicle under the framework.

The US Department of Energy's Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity for up to $134 million to support projects that demonstrate commercial-scale recovery and refining of rare earth elements — praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium — from unconventional feedstocks such as mine tailings, e-waste and other waste streams, under the department's Rare Earth Demonstration Facility program. Applicants must partner with an academic institution and cost-share at least 50% of project cost; non-binding letters of intent were due December 10, 2025 with full applications due January 5, 2026.

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%).

The US Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, via the National Energy Technology Laboratory, announced USD 355 million in federal funding across two notices of funding opportunity (NOFOs) on 14 November 2025: up to USD 275 million for pilot-scale facilities recovering critical minerals from coal-based feedstocks and industrial/mining byproducts at existing US industrial sites, and up to USD 80 million for the "Mine of the Future — Proving Ground Initiative," field-scale test sites for next-generation mining technologies (novel extraction, in-situ methods, beneficiation) plus mining-workforce training. Applications were due 15 December 2025.

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 6 November 2025 in Washington, DC, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Kazakhstan's Minister of Industry and Construction Yersayin Nagaspayev signed a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on Critical Minerals Cooperation during President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's state visit and the C5+1 Presidential Summit. The MoU establishes a framework for joint exploration, processing, and supply-chain transparency for tungsten, uranium, and rare-earth elements, with the explicit objective of building "resilient, non-Chinese supply-chains" for the global energy transition. The instrument is paired with up to USD 900 million in potential US financing to Cove Kaz Capital Group for tungsten development and sits inside a broader USD 17 billion package of Washington-signed agreements that lifts headline US-Kazakhstan economic engagement to a reported USD 117 billion.

On 3 November 2025 the US Department of Commerce's CHIPS Program Office (administered via NIST) announced a non-binding preliminary letter of intent to take a $50 million equity stake in Vulcan Elements, a North Carolina-based rare-earth magnet producer. The CHIPS and Science Act funding is earmarked for equipment to separate, metallize and manufacture Neodymium Iron Boron (NdFeB) magnets, targeting up to 10,000 metric tonnes of annual domestic production capacity. Commerce framed the investment around NdFeB magnets' role in the semiconductor equipment supply chain (EUV lithography, CVD, etch and pump systems). The equity stake is conditioned on final negotiation and approval and runs alongside a separately-tracked $620 million Department of War Office of Strategic Capital loan to Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies announced the same day.

On 3 November 2025 the US Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), together with the Department of Commerce, announced a joint conditional loan commitment of $700 million to two domestic rare-earth magnet producers: $620 million to Vulcan Elements and $80 million to ReElement Technologies. The loans fund separation, metallization and finished-magnet manufacturing capacity for Neodymium Iron Boron (NdFeB) magnets, targeting up to 10,000 metric tons of annual domestic magnet production. In exchange, the Department of War receives warrants in both companies. This action covers the OSC loan tranche; a related, separately-tracked action covers the Department of Commerce's parallel $50 million CHIPS Act equity stake in Vulcan Elements.

At the APEC Busan summit on 30 October 2025, Presidents Trump and Xi reached the "Economic and Trade Arrangement Between the United States and the People's Republic of China," subsequently implemented on the US side by the executive order "Modifying Reciprocal Tariff Rates Consistent with the Economic and Trade Arrangement" (issued 4 November 2025; effective 12:01 am EST on 10 November 2025; published in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025 as 90 FR 50729 / 2025-19826) and on the Chinese side by a series of MOFCOM and State Council Tariff Commission announcements (notably MOFCOM 2025 No. 90 of 8–9 November 2025). The arrangement is structurally parallel to the already-filed US-Japan, US-Korea and US-Taiwan framework deals but uniquely material because it freezes the highest-stakes bilateral tariff and export-control confrontation of the post-2024 reset. Core US commitments: (i) reciprocal-tariff "additional ad valorem rate of duty" on PRC-origin goods reduced from a prior 20% IEEPA-fentanyl + 10% IEEPA-reciprocal stack to a 10% rate (i.e., the prior 24% / 34% scheduled escalation is suspended), extended through 10 November 2026; (ii) US BIS suspends the so-called "affiliates rule" expanding entity-list controls to majority-owned subsidiaries of listed Chinese firms; (iii) USTR pauses Section 301 maritime / shipbuilding / logistics countermeasures against Chinese vessels for one year. Core PRC commitments: (i) MOFCOM suspends for one year (until 10 November 2026) the 9 October 2025 extraterritorial rare-earth export-control package — including controls on REE processing equipment, lithium-battery manufacturing equipment, and superhard materials; (ii) PRC suspends retaliatory tariffs on a broad swath of US agricultural products through 31 December 2026; (iii) commitment to purchase ≥25 million metric tonnes of US soybeans annually in 2026-2028 and to resume sorghum and log imports; (iv) suspension of MOFCOM antitrust and "unreliable-entity" probes against named US semiconductor and chip-equipment companies; (v) cooperation on fentanyl precursor enforcement. The arrangement does not repeal underlying authorities (IEEPA tariffs, MOFCOM export-control list, Entity List) — it is a calibrated mutual freeze with a one-year sunset and quarterly review checkpoints.

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 Anwar Ibrahim signed two complementary instruments structuring the US-Malaysia economic relationship: (i) a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Cooperation to Diversify Global Critical Minerals Supply Chains and Promote Investments, establishing quarterly working-level meetings on bilateral exploration, extraction, processing, refining, manufacturing, and recycling, plus shared commitments on streamlined permitting and protection from non-market policies; and (ii) a legally-binding Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) covering goods (chemicals, machinery, electrical equipment, metals, vehicles, dairy, horticulture, poultry, pork, rice, fuel ethanol), digital trade, services, and investment. Under the ART, the United States maintains a 19% reciprocal tariff on Malaysian imports (with carve-outs for products receiving 0% under EO 14346) while Malaysia commits to refrain from banning or quota-restricting exports of critical minerals or rare earths to the US, ensure no restrictions on rare-earth magnet sales to US firms, and grant extended operating licenses to US partners. The ART enters into force 60 days after exchange of notifications of completed domestic procedures.

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.

On 20 October 2025, President Donald J. Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed at the White House the "United States-Australia Framework for Securing of Supply in the Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths" — a non-binding common-policy instrument committing both governments to provide at least USD 1 billion each in financing within six months (USD 3bn+ joint commitment against an USD 8.5bn project pipeline and a stated USD 53bn recoverable-resource pipeline). The framework establishes a US-Australia Critical Minerals Supply Security Response Group co-led by the US Secretary of Energy and the Australian Minister for Resources, mandates streamlined permitting for mining/separation/processing projects, and explicitly couples the US demand-side architecture (DPA Title III + Defense Logistics Agency stockpile) to Australia's Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve. Concurrent with signing, EXIM issued seven Letters of Interest totalling USD 2.2bn (unlocking up to USD 5bn) to Arafura Rare Earths, Northern Minerals, Graphinex, La Trobe Magnesium, VHM, RZ Resources, and Sunrise Energy Metals; the US Department of War separately committed to a 100 metric-ton-per-year advanced gallium refinery in Western Australia, and Australia took USD 200m concessional equity in the Alcoa-Sojitz Wagerup gallium project and USD 100m equity in the Arafura Nolans rare-earths project.

The US Department of War announced a USD 43.4 million Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III award to Alaska Range Resources, LLC — a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nova Minerals Limited — to fund the initial phase of an integrated domestic antimony supply chain at the Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project, roughly 150 km northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. The award funds extraction, concentration and refining of stibnite ore into military-grade antimony trisulfide, used in munitions primer production and case hardening. It follows China's December 2024 ban on antimony exports to the US and is intended to establish a "full spectrum" domestic antimony mining and refining hub to reduce reliance on Chinese-controlled supply.

The US Department of Defense announced a USD 10 million Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III award to Elk Creek Resources Corp (ECRC), a subsidiary of NioCorp Developments Ltd, to advance a domestic "mine-to-master-alloy" scandium supply chain at the Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in Nebraska. The funds support feasibility-level engineering, additional reserve drilling and updated cost estimates for the polymetallic deposit (scandium, niobium, titanium and rare earths), and support integration of aluminum-scandium master alloy into aerospace platforms alongside a defense prime contractor. The award notes the US has not mined scandium since 1969 and that current global scandium supply is overwhelmingly foreign-sourced, with China the dominant producer.

H.R.1, the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (Public Law 119-21), was signed into law by President Trump on 4 July 2025. The budget-reconciliation statute is the single largest reversal of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) industrial-policy framework: it accelerates the termination of IRA-era clean- energy tax credits and overlays a new "Foreign Entity of Concern" (FEOC) / "Prohibited Foreign Entity" (PFE) regime on the credits that survive. The §25E used-EV credit, the §30D new clean-vehicle credit, the §45W commercial clean-vehicle credit, and the §30C alternative-fuel-refueling-property credit terminate for vehicles or property placed in service after 30 September 2025. The §25C energy-efficient home improvement credit and the §25D residential clean-energy credit terminate for property placed in service after 31 December 2025. The §45Y clean-electricity production credit and §48E clean-electricity investment credit are eliminated for wind and solar facilities placed in service after 31 December 2027, with a safe harbour for projects whose construction begins on or before 4 July 2026. From 1 January 2026, projects beginning construction must satisfy "material assistance" thresholds limiting the share of components, subcomponents and critical minerals sourced from prohibited foreign entities (PRC, Russia, Iran, DPRK and entities controlled by them). For §45Y/§48E facilities the threshold starts at 40% non-PFE content in 2026 and steps up by 5 percentage points per year through 2030; for §45X advanced manufacturing PTC the analogous schedule begins at 50% in 2026 and rises through the decade. CBO scored the package's energy-credit terminations as generating roughly USD 280bn of revenue (gross), of which USD 77.4bn from §25D termination, USD 21.2bn from §25C, USD 77.8bn from §30D, USD 104.5bn from §45W, and USD 2bn from §30C, partially offsetting the bill's other tax cuts. The bill simultaneously re-authorises and broadens the §48D advanced manufacturing investment tax credit for semiconductor fabs, raising the credit rate from 25% to 35% for property placed in service after 31 December 2025 (preserving the CHIPS Act-aligned semiconductor leg of the IRA-era stack). The OBBBA therefore reshapes the IRA from a broad-based clean-energy + EV + manufacturing pull-through into a narrower, China-decoupling industrial policy concentrated on semiconductors and (residually) §45X battery / critical- mineral processing.

Presidential Executive Order 14285, signed by President Trump on 24 April 2025 and published at 90 FR 17735, directs federal agencies to expedite US seabed critical-mineral exploration and extraction both within the US Outer Continental Shelf and in international waters beyond national jurisdiction. NOAA is to fast-track Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (30 U.S.C. § 1401) exploration licences and commercial recovery permits; BOEM is to streamline OCS Lands Act prospecting permits and leases; Interior, Defense, and Energy are to identify seabed-derived critical minerals for the National Defense Stockpile and DPA Title III financial assistance. The order asserts unilateral US authority to permit deep-sea mining beyond national jurisdiction outside the UNCLOS / International Seabed Authority framework, with most agency reports due within 60 days of signing.

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.

On 14 January 2025 in Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide signed a bilateral Memorandum of Cooperation on High-Standard, Market-Oriented Trade of Critical Minerals. The instrument formalises an intergovernmental framework for cooperation on critical-minerals supply chains and embeds a Non-Market Policies and Practices (NMPP) analysis framework jointly developed by the US Department of Commerce and Norway's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries to identify and respond to non-market distortions in third countries. The MoC sits structurally alongside the parallel US bilateral track with Kazakhstan (Nov 2025), Uzbekistan, Guinea, Morocco, Peru and the Philippines (Feb 2026), extending the post-2024 US critical-minerals MoU architecture into a Western-aligned high-standards producer (Norway hosts the Fen Complex REE deposit and the Engebø rutile/garnet project).

The Biden administration announced on 14 May 2024 a package of Section 301 tariff increases on Chinese imports following the four-year statutory review of the original 2018-2019 tariffs. The hikes target sectors central to the US-China industrial-policy contest: BEVs went from 25% to 100%, lithium- ion EV batteries 7.5% → 25% (with non-EV battery cells rising in 2026), battery parts 7.5% → 25%, natural graphite + magnets 0% → 25% (phased to 2026), semiconductors 25% → 50% (phased to 2025), solar cells 25% → 50%, steel + aluminum products in selected categories 0-7.5% → 25%, ship-to-shore cranes 0% → 25%, certain medical products 0-7.5% → 50%. USTR issued the final determination on 13 September 2024 with most items effective 27 September 2024.

The Inflation Reduction Act (Public Law 117-169), signed by President Biden on 16 August 2022, contains the largest single package of clean-energy and clean-manufacturing subsidies in US history — Congressional Budget Office scored the energy and climate provisions at $369B over 10 years, with subsequent Treasury / academic estimates reaching $800B-$1.2T as uptake exceeded baseline. Core mechanisms include the Section 30D Clean Vehicle credit ($7,500 per qualifying EV), the Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit (per-unit credits for domestically-produced battery cells, modules, electrodes, and critical-mineral processing), the Section 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit, and the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Credit. Critically, the law contains Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) provisions barring credit eligibility for vehicles or components linked to entities controlled by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.

On 1 February 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense announced a USD 30.4 million Defense Production Act Title III technology investment agreement with Lynas USA LLC, the U.S. subsidiary of Australia's Lynas Rare Earths Ltd, to establish domestic light rare earth element (LREE) separation capacity in Hondo, Texas. DOD framed the award as reducing reliance on China for rare earth oxides used in defense and commercial applications; the department projected that, if the Texas facility and Lynas's Malaysian operations are completed as planned, Lynas would supply roughly 25% of world rare earth oxide demand outside China.