Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

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 16 December 2025 the European Commission adopted the Communication on a Battery Booster Strategy (later published in the Official Journal as C/2026/682), part of the EU Automotive Package presented alongside the CO2 emission-standards review, the Automotive Omnibus simplification, and the Corporate Vehicle Decarbonisation initiative. The Battery Booster envelopes EUR 1.8bn of EU-budget support for the European battery value chain: EUR 1.5bn from the Innovation Fund as interest-free loans for European battery cell producers ramping to giga-scale output (delivered through a dedicated Battery Booster Facility, with the implementing Commission Decision in stakeholder consultation through 15 March 2026), plus EUR 300m for critical raw materials projects in Europe. The strategy is the first standalone EU industrial-finance instrument targeted exclusively at battery cell manufacturing, and is paired with RESourceEU (3 Dec 2025) and the Industrial Accelerator Act proposal (4 Mar 2026) to stitch together upstream CRM, midstream cell production and downstream automotive demand.

Vietnam's 15th National Assembly adopted Law No. 147/2025/QH15 ("Law amending and supplementing some articles of the Law on Geology and Minerals") on 11 December 2025 by 421 of 432 deputies in favour (89.01%), at the 10th session, with effect from 1 January 2026. The amendment slots a dedicated rare-earth framework into the parent Law No. 54/2024/QH15, classifying rare earths as "special strategic" minerals subject to strict state management. Raw rare-earth ore export is prohibited; only state-designated or state-approved enterprises may explore, exploit, process and use rare earths; all activity must conform to a national rare-earth strategy and master plan. The state centralises geological data, regulates rare-earth import/export flows according to national needs, and builds strategic stockpiles. The amendment converts the 2024 framework law's general domestic-supply priority into an explicit raw-export ban for the world's second-largest known rare-earth resource holder.

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.

On 3 December 2025, Export Finance Australia (EFA) disclosed a €120 million (~AU$196 million) loan commitment to Vulcan Energy Resources' Phase One Lionheart Project in Germany's Upper Rhine Valley, which will produce battery-quality lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM) from geothermal brine while co-generating renewable heat and power. The loan is part of a syndicated, multi-country export-credit package alongside Germany's KfW Raw Materials Fund, the European Investment Bank, Export Development Canada, Denmark's EIFO, France's Bpifrance Assurance Export, and Italy's SACE, financing a project with total capital cost of ~€2.193 billion (~AU$3.9 billion). Phase One targets 24,000 tonnes per annum of LHM, enough for roughly 500,000 electric vehicles.

On 3 December 2025 the European Commission adopted the RESourceEU Action Plan (COM(2025) 945 final), a horizontal critical-raw-materials supply-security instrument complementing the 2023 Critical Raw Materials Act. The plan mobilises €3 billion in EU funds within twelve months for priority CRM projects, creates a European Critical Raw Materials Centre operational from 2026 (modelled on Japan's JOGMEC) acting as portfolio manager for diversified supply chains, joint purchasing and stockpiling, and activates the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act (IMERA) "vigilance" and "emergency" modes from May 2026 with mandatory information requests, priority deliveries and coordinated stockpile distribution. A targeted CRMA amendment expands product labelling for permanent-magnet recycling and adds export controls on permanent-magnet and aluminium scrap. Targets a 30-50% reduction by 2029 in single-country dependency for battery, rare-earth and defence raw-material value chains.

The Department for Business and Trade, with DSIT, published "Vision 2035: Critical Minerals Strategy" on 22 November 2025 — the UK's first dedicated critical-minerals strategy under the Starmer government, superseding the withdrawn 2022 strategy. DBT commits up to GBP 50 million for new critical mineral projects on top of GBP 165 million in existing support, with the National Wealth Fund providing equity backing (Cornish Lithium GBP 24m in 2023 plus a further GBP 31m commitment in 2025; Cornish Metals GBP 28.6m in 2025; South Crofty Tin GBP 26.8m). Sets 2035 targets of 10% of UK industrial demand from domestic production (extraction + processing + refining), 20% from recycling, and a hard floor of 50,000 tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent produced domestically. Strategy is consciously midstream-and-recycling-tilted rather than upstream-extraction race; pillars are (i) optimise domestic production, (ii) resilient global supply networks via partnerships with US, EU, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan (plus Kazakhstan rhenium/vanadium and continued China engagement), (iii) circular economy / recycling, (iv) responsible supply chains.

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma'aden), MP Materials Corp., and the US Department of Defense signed a binding term sheet on November 19, 2025 to establish a joint venture that will build and operate a rare earth refining and separation facility in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ma'aden holds a minimum 51% controlling stake; MP Materials and the DoD together hold the remaining 49%. The facility will process rare earth feedstock from Saudi and global sources to produce separated light and heavy rare earth oxides, with a validity window to commercial agreement extending through March 31, 2027.

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%).

Portaria Normativa GM/MME nº 120/2025, published in the Diário Oficial da União on 14 November 2025 by the Ministério de Minas e Energia, regulates the Política de Debêntures para Projetos de Transformação de Minerais Estratégicos para a Transição Energética. It sets the eligibility criteria, classification methodology and project-approval pipeline (under Decreto 11.964/2024 and Leis 12.431/2011 and 14.801/2024) for tax-exempt incentivised debentures and infrastructure debentures financing the downstream transformation of cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel and rare earths into battery and permanent-magnet inputs (lithium carbonate/hydroxide, cobalt sulfate, nickel sulfate, battery-grade copper foil, rare earth oxides/ chlorides/metals/alloys). MME estimates ~R$5.2 bn/year in unlocked private investment (R$3.7 bn transformation + R$1.5 bn mining/ beneficiation, with up to 49% of bond proceeds usable on linked upstream activities).

On 11 November 2025 President Mamadi Doumbouya officially inaugurated start of operations at the Simandou Integrated Project — Africa's largest greenfield mine-and-infrastructure asset — at a ceremony attended by the presidents of Rwanda and Gabon, China's Vice-Premier, and PMs from Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone. The project comprises Blocks 1–2 (WCS: Winning International / China Hongqiao / Baowu) and Blocks 3–4 (SimFer: Rio Tinto 53% / Chinalco-led JV 47%), connected by 622 km of multi-use trans-Guinean railway to barge and transhipment port facilities at Forécariah, operated by Compagnie du TransGuinéen (CTG). Combined design capacity is up to 120 Mt/yr of high-grade (~65% Fe) iron ore, the largest single addition to seaborne supply since Vale's S11D ramp in 2016, structurally reshaping Australia-Brazil price competition and China's iron-ore import geography.

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and General Administration of Customs (GAC) issued Announcement No. 72 (2025) on November 9, 2025, suspending Article 2 of Announcement No. 46 (2024) — the provision that had imposed a categorical export ban on gallium, germanium, antimony, superhard materials, and graphite dual-use items destined for the United States. The suspension is valid until November 27, 2026, reverting these exports to China's standard dual-use licensing framework for that period. Article 1 of Announcement No. 46 — prohibiting re-exports to US military end-users regardless of routing — remains fully in force. The measure followed bilateral US-China trade consultations and signals a conditional de-escalation window within China's established critical-minerals counter-strike posture.

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and General Administration of Customs (GAC) issued Announcement No. 70 (2025) on November 7, 2025, suspending for one year the package of rare-earth export-control measures announced on October 9, 2025 (Announcements Nos. 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62). The suspended measures include the licensing regime on medium- and heavy-rare-earth elements, rare-earth processing equipment and technologies, lithium-battery and synthetic-graphite anode materials, superhard materials, and — most significantly — the extraterritorial "0.1% content" rule of Announcement No. 61 that asserted licence jurisdiction over foreign-made products containing Chinese-origin controlled rare earths. The gazette text fixes the window explicitly: "自即日起至2026年11月10日" (from the date of issue until November 10, 2026). This is the rare-earth leg of the post-Busan US-China truce; the dual-use leg (gallium, germanium, antimony, graphite) was suspended two days later by the separate Announcement No. 72 (2025), which runs to November 27, 2026. The two instruments create a two-step expiry cliff in November 2026.

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.

Canada's Budget 2025 (released 4 November 2025) expands the Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (CMETC) to cover 12 additional minerals: bismuth, cesium, chromium, fluorspar, germanium, indium, manganese, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum, tin, and tungsten. The 30% flow-through share enhanced rate (double the standard 15% Mineral Exploration Tax Credit) is maintained and applies to agreements entered after November 4, 2025 and before March 31, 2027. This is the first scope expansion since CMETC's creation in 2022, bringing the total eligible mineral count to approximately 27 and aligning the credit with Canada's 2024 Critical Minerals List update.

Canada's Budget 2025 (released 4 November 2025) creates the First and Last Mile Fund (FLMF), allocating $371.8 million over four years starting in 2026-27 to Natural Resources Canada to address transport and utility bottlenecks connecting near-term critical-minerals production sites to deep-water ports and downstream processing facilities. The fund absorbs the existing Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund and leverages its envelope to provide up to $1.5 billion in total support through 2029-30. The FLMF is structurally distinct from the CMSF (equity/debt vehicle), the CMETC (exploration tax credit), and the Clean Tech ITC (manufacturing tax credit) — it is the infrastructure-grant instrument completing Canada's critical-minerals programme architecture.

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.

On 31 October 2025, Canada's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson announced — on the sidelines of the G7 Energy & Environment Ministers' Meeting in Toronto — that the federal government will leverage the Defence Production Act (DPA) to designate critical minerals as defence supplies and build a strategic stockpile, with the Crown acting as buyer of last resort and setting confidential minimum prices to insulate Canadian producers from Chinese price suppression. The announcement was paired with an initial round of 26 investments, partnerships and measures totalling C$6.4 billion in unlocked critical-mineral capital (~C$120m direct federal spend plus up to ~C$1.2 bn in offtake agreements, expressions of interest and export guarantees) and aligned with nine allied countries. It is the first time Canada has invoked DPA stockpiling and priority-procurement powers for non-traditional defence inputs (lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, rare earths, graphite, uranium) and repositions Canada as an allied-aligned strategic supplier parallel to US DPA Title III action under EO 14241.

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.

MOFCOM Announcement No. 68 of 2025 (商务部公告2025年第68号), issued on 26 October 2025, sets the application requirements and procedures for state-owned trading enterprises (STEs) authorised to export tungsten, antimony and silver during the 2026-2027 cycle. The notice formalises a quota review and joint-approval gate operated through the Key Export Supervision Catalog under MOFCOM's foreign-trade STE authority — distinct from the Export Control Law dual-use regime used in Announcement No. 10 of February 2025. Silver is added for the first time to the STE-managed list, framed by MOFCOM as defence of strategic supply for defence, electronics and photovoltaics. Approved-exporter lists were published in a follow-on review-results notice; the new regime applies to export shipments dated 1 January 2026 onwards.

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.

China's Ministry of Commerce on 9 October 2025 issued Announcements No. 61 and No. 62, jointly constituting the largest single architectural escalation of PRC export controls to date. No. 61 expands the controlled rare-earth list from 7 to 12 of 17 elements (adding holmium, erbium, thulium, europium, ytterbium) and — for the first time — imposes extraterritorial application via a 0.1% de-minimis rule, a foreign-direct-product (FDP) rule, and a 50%-affiliate rule, directly mirroring US BIS architecture. No. 62 places rare-earth extraction, smelting, separation, magnet manufacturing, and recycling technologies (including IP licensing, investment, and provision to foreign persons) under export licensing. PRC-direct exports were controlled from publication; the de-minimis and FDP offshore-items provisions were due to take effect 1 December 2025. On 7 November 2025 MOFCOM Announcement No. 70 suspended both measures until 10 November 2026 as part of the post-APEC Trump-Xi tariff detente — see amendments block.

Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources issued Permen ESDM No. 17 of 2025 on procedures for preparing, submitting and approving Work Plans and Budgets (RKAB) and reporting of mineral and coal mining activities. Signed by Minister Bahlil Lahadalia on 30 September 2025 and in force from 3 October 2025, the regulation reverses the 2023 three-year RKAB cycle back to an annual cycle, requires all IUP/IUPK holders to resubmit through the new MinerbaOne digital portal between 1 October and 15 November each year, annuls previously-issued 2026/2027 quotas, and introduces a 5-working-day auto-approval rule. Operationalised by a 2026 nickel-ore RKAB target band of 250–270 million wmt — roughly one third below the 2025 approved quota of ~379 million wmt — explicitly framed as a price-management and conservation instrument. First clear use of the RKAB framework as an explicit market-management lever rather than a domestic-licensing tool.

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.

On 8 September 2025 at Prime Minister House in Islamabad, U.S. Strategic Metals (USSM, Missouri) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Pakistan's Frontier Works Organization (FWO, Pakistan Army-affiliated and the country's largest miner of critical minerals) committing to an initial USD 500 million investment programme covering antimony, copper, gold, tungsten, and rare-earth elements, with an envisaged poly-metallic refinery inside Pakistan. Embassy Islamabad Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Zach Harkenrider attended the signing. The first shipment of rare earths and other critical minerals from Pakistan to the United States was dispatched on 2 October 2025, marking the operational start of the partnership. The instrument forms the strategic- minerals limb of a broader Pakistan–U.S. realignment paired with U.S. EXIM Bank's USD 1.25 billion financing commitment for the Reko Diq copper-gold project (announced 10 December 2025) — a single coherent bilateral package positioning Pakistan as a non- PRC source of refined critical minerals to the United States.

On 5 September 2025, President Gabriel Boric led the signing of the inaugural Contrato Especial de Operación de Litio (CEOL) between the Chilean government and state mining company ENAMI (Empresa Nacional de Minería) for the Salares Altoandinos basins in the Atacama region — the first CEOL ever issued under Chile's 2023 National Lithium Strategy. The contract runs until 31 December 2060 and covers exploration, evaluation, construction, and extraction phases; Rio Tinto holds a 51% operating stake with up to $425 million in cash and Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology contributions, while ENAMI retains 49% with full corporate- governance rights over material decisions. Projected peak output is 75,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), with production expected to commence between 2032 and 2034.

Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) issued Ministerial Decree Kepmen ESDM No. 268.K/MB.01/MEM.B/2025 on 8 August 2025, establishing Guidelines for Determining Benchmark Prices (Harga Patokan Mineral/HPM and Harga Patokan Batubara/HPB) for the sale of metal minerals and coal. It revokes the predecessor Kepmen 72/2025 and relaxes the absolute HPM/HPB price-floor mandate—exempting pre-existing contracts at below-benchmark prices—while preserving HPM/HPB as the obligatory basis for royalty and tax calculation, closing transfer-pricing avoidance. Pricing formulas cover nickel, cobalt, copper, gold, bauxite, tin, and coal grades, directly determining royalty revenues collected under the already-filed PP 19/2025 progressive royalty framework from the world's largest nickel producer (~62% of global supply).

DRC's Cadastre Minier (CAMI) granted KoBold Metals seven exclusive exploration permits covering approximately 1,600 km² in Tanganyika (four permits, Manono territory) and Haut-Lomami (three, Malemba Nkulu territory) provinces, valid for five years. The permits were issued August 27, 2025 following a July 2025 accord de principe between KoBold and the DRC Ministry of Mines; an official handover ceremony was held September 3, 2025, presided by Minister of Mines Louis Watum Kabamba. KoBold Metals — backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman — becomes the first US company to hold formal DRC lithium exploration rights over the Manono deposit, one of the world's largest confirmed hard-rock lithium resources (~400 Mt estimated), placing it in direct strategic competition with Chinese-backed Zijin/La Cominière whose rights over the same deposit are contested in ICSID arbitration by AVZ Minerals.

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.

Vietnam's Government adopted Decree 193/2025/ND-CP on 2 July 2025 (effective retroactively from 1 July 2025) as the primary operational statute elaborating the Law on Geology and Minerals No. 54/2024/QH15. The decree decentralises licensing for most mineral categories to provincial People's Committees while preserving central Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MAE) authority over strategic and critical minerals, including rare earths, gold, uranium, and thorium. It codifies a three-tier Group I/II/III mineral classification, imposes a 100% financial-capacity bond requirement for exploration licences, sets a 40-working-day processing deadline, and defines the closed-enterprise framework that makes Vietnam's 1 January 2026 raw rare-earth export ban operationally enforceable through a Prime-Minister-designated list of licensed enterprises.

The Building Canada Act (SC 2025, c. 2, s. 4), enacted as Division 4 of Part 2 of the One Canadian Economy Act (Bill C-5, 45th Parliament, 1st Session, Carney government), creates a federal "Projects of National Interest" (PNI) designation mechanism that streamlines and can override standard federal environmental and regulatory reviews for critical infrastructure and critical mineral mining projects. Once designated by the Governor-in-Council, a project automatically receives federal regulatory approvals listed in Schedule 2 of the Act, subject to conditions established by the Minister, through a single consolidated review process. Additional projects may be added to the Schedule over the five years following the Act's entry into force. This is the first Canadian project-permitting and approval-streamlining statute on the IPTM register, complementing the existing CA critical-minerals subsidy, tax-credit, and sovereign-fund instruments.

The Gabonese Council of Ministers on 30 May 2025 adopted a decision prohibiting all exports of raw (crude) manganese ore effective 1 January 2029, requiring that all manganese mined in Gabon be processed domestically before export. A Commission has been established to draft the implementing regulation, and the Ministry of Industry and Local Transformation is working with COMILOG (Eramet) on transition modalities including the planned Moanda ferromanganese plant (300 kt/yr capacity). The measure applies to the world's #2 manganese producer (~25% of global reserves; ~8 Mt/yr current output, the bulk via COMILOG-Eramet), forcing upstream beneficiation onto Eramet/COMILOG, CITIC, and Ningbo Steel. The ban is the flagship industrial-policy instrument of the "Gabon Industriel 2035" national strategy under President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve (CMSR) on 24 April 2025 as a A$1.2bn election commitment in the 2025-26 Budget. The Department of Industry, Science and Resources released the design package on 12 January 2026, prioritising antimony, gallium, and rare earth elements as the initial focus minerals (A$1bn for offtake transactions drawn from an expanded A$5bn Critical Minerals Facility, plus A$185m for physical stockpiling and implementation). The Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Strategic Reserve) Act 2026 passed Parliament on 31 March 2026 with effect 1 April 2026, giving Export Finance Australia (EFA) statutory power to enter offtake agreements, contracts for difference, forward contracts, and physical stockpiles for fuel and critical minerals. CMSR becomes operational in second half 2026.

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.

On 23 April 2025 CMOC Group (HKG:3993) announced the acquisition of TSXV-listed Lumina Gold Corp — 100% owner of the Cangrejos (Los Cangrejos) gold-copper project in El Oro Province, southwestern Ecuador — via a court-sanctioned plan of arrangement at C$1.27/share (C$581M / ~USD 420M); the transaction closed on 24 June 2025 through a Singapore subsidiary, making Cangrejos Ecuador's largest primary gold deposit under full Chinese operational control. On 27 April 2026 CMOC's Ecuadorian subsidiary ODIN Mining del Ecuador signed a 26-year exploitation contract with Ecuador's Ministry of Energy and Mines committing >$1.7B in total investment (~$54M advance royalties, $34M paid on signing); commercial production is targeted for 2028 at ~11.5 t/yr gold (~370,000 oz/yr), making the state-projected total revenues $4.39B over the mine life. The acquisition extends CMOC's critical-mineral portfolio — anchored in DRC cobalt/copper — into Ecuadorian gold and copper, concentrating a globally significant undeveloped gold-copper deposit under Chinese operational control ahead of the competing 2026 Ecuador–US Critical Minerals Bilateral Framework.

China's Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs announced on 4 April 2025 export licensing requirements on seven medium and heavy rare-earth elements: samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium. Exporters must apply for individual licences citing the end-user and end-use, with licences granted at MOFCOM's discretion. The announcement came two days after the 2 April Trump reciprocal-tariff package and was widely interpreted as a proportional response. Unlike the December 2024 Ga/Ge/Sb ban this is not US-specific on its face — but in practice licence approvals through April-June 2025 were heavily skewed away from US-bound shipments.

At the first-ever EU-Central Asia Summit in Samarkand (4 April 2025), the European Commission and Kazakhstan endorsed the EU-Kazakhstan Strategic Partnership Roadmap 2025-2026, operationalising the 7 November 2022 MoU on Sustainable Raw Materials, Batteries, and Renewable Hydrogen with concrete two-year workstreams: geological exploration cooperation, joint R&I programmes (Horizon Europe linkages), skills and training cooperation, and promotion of ESG standards aligned with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA, Reg. (EU) 2024/1252). The Roadmap positions Kazakhstan as the EU's primary Central-Asian CRMA Strategic Partner under Art. 37, unlocking a potential multi-billion-EUR Global Gateway financing pipeline and structurally rebalancing KZ critical-mineral export flows away from China/Russia dependencies.

On 26 March 2025 President Mamadi Doumbouya presided over the groundbreaking ceremony for Guinea's first alumina refinery since independence, developed by Chinese state enterprise SPIC International Investment and Development (Guinea) Co. Ltd. in Boffa Prefecture (Koundindhé district). The plant — USD 1.03 billion investment — will process 15 Mt/yr of bauxite into 1.2 Mt/yr of alumina, paired with a 250 MW integrated power plant (100 MW to Guinea's national grid); commercial production is targeted for late 2028. The project operationalises Guinea's Simandou 2040 in-country processing mandate, under which all bauxite concession holders must commit to building alumina refineries or face licence revocation, cementing Chinese-capital control of Guinea's bauxite-to-aluminium value chain.

On 25 March 2025 the European Commission adopted the first list of 47 Strategic Projects inside the EU under Article 7 of the Critical Raw Materials Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1252), followed on 4 June 2025 by 13 Strategic Projects located in third countries — 60 designations in total. The 47 EU projects span 13 Member States and 14 strategic raw materials, with an expected EUR 22.5bn capital-investment envelope; the 13 third-country projects require a further EUR 5.5bn. Designation triggers fast-track permitting (max 27 months for extraction, 15 months for processing/recycling), preferential access to EU/EIB/EBRD finance, and Member State priority status, operationalising the CRMA's 2030 benchmarks (≥10% extraction, ≥40% processing, ≥25% recycling, ≤65% single-country dependence).

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 26 February 2025 the European Commission adopted the "Clean Industrial Deal" (CID), Communication COM(2025) 85 final, framed as a joint roadmap for competitiveness and decarbonisation. The CID bundles state-aid simplification, energy-cost relief, lead-market creation, capital mobilisation and circular-economy mandates into a single industrial strategy targeting both energy-intensive industries (steel, metals, chemicals, cement) and clean-tech manufacturing (batteries, solar, wind, heat pumps, electrolyzers). The Commission claims the package will mobilise more than €100 billion of public-and-private financing for EU-made clean manufacturing through a strengthened Innovation Fund, amendments to the InvestEU Regulation (up to €50bn additional guarantee capacity) and a proposed Industrial Decarbonisation Bank. CID directly precedes the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF, adopted 25 June 2025) and seeds legislative work on an Industrial Accelerator Act, a Circular Economy Act, and a strengthened CBAM. Severity 4 on mixed basis: explicit €100bn+ quant headline plus qualitative breadth across the EU industrial perimeter, formally re-anchoring the von der Leyen II mandate around competitiveness rather than pure decarbonisation.

On 24 February 2025 President Prabowo Subianto launched Badan Pengelola Investasi Daya Anagata Nusantara (Danantara), Indonesia's new state investment-management agency, consolidating around USD 900bn–1tn of Indonesian state-owned-enterprise assets — including Pertamina, PLN, Bank Mandiri, BRI, BNI, Telkom, MIND ID, Antam and Inalum — into a single super-holding modelled on Singapore's Temasek. Danantara was created by the Third Amendment to the BUMN Law (Law No. 1 of 2025, enacted 24 February 2025) and Government Regulation No. 10 of 2025 on its organisation and governance, with board appointments formalised by Presidential Regulation No. 30 of 2025. The agency reports directly to the President, bypassing the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises, and is mandated to deploy SOE balance-sheet capacity into Prabowo's 8% growth target via co-investment in mineral downstreaming, refinery and EV-battery build-out, food security, and semiconductor / data-centre infrastructure.

On 22 February 2025 the Authority for the Regulation and Control of Strategic Mineral Substance Markets (ARECOMS) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo issued Decision No. 001/ARECOMS/2025 imposing a four-month suspension of all cobalt exports — industrial and artisanal — in response to a multi-year cobalt price collapse driven by structural oversupply from CMOC's Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu mines. The DRC accounts for roughly 70-76% of global mined cobalt, so the ban removed the dominant source of feedstock from the seaborne market. The ban was extended in late June 2025 by another three months, then on 10 October 2025 ARECOMS issued Decision No. 005/ARECOMS/2025 lifting the outright suspension and replacing it with a hard annual export quota: 18,125 t for the November-December 2025 transition window, then 96,600 t per year for 2026 and 2027. The annual ceiling consists of an 87,000 t "base quota" distributed pro-rata using each producer's January 2022 - December 2024 historical export volumes, plus a 9,600 t "strategic quota" allocated at ARECOMS' sole discretion to projects of national strategic importance. Allocations for Q4 2025 went disproportionately to the largest incumbents: CMOC received 6,500 t (Tenke Fungurume + Kisanfu), Glencore 3,925 t (Kamoto + Mutanda), and Eurasian Resources Group 2,125 t (Metalkol). CMOC's award is far below its ~115 kt 2024 production rate, structurally capping the world's top cobalt producer below 30% of its operating capacity. Exporters must obtain a Quota Verification Certificate (AVQ) from ARECOMS, submit to joint sampling, weighing, sealing and physical inspection by multiple government agencies, and prepay the 10% mining royalty within 48 hours of declaring origin and sale. ARECOMS reserves the right to revise quotas quarterly in case of "significant imbalance in the cobalt market," and explicitly retained discretion to re-set 2027 volumes. The measure is the EM resource-nationalism complement to Indonesia's nickel-ore ban template, applied to the single material where one country has the most concentrated global supply share.

On 29 January 2025 the Union Cabinet of India approved the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM), a seven-year programme running FY2024-25 through FY2030-31 with a headline financial envelope of ₹34,300 crore (≈USD 4.0 bn). The structure is split: ₹16,300 crore of direct government outlay administered by the Ministry of Mines, plus an expected ₹18,000 crore of investment by central public-sector undertakings (PSUs) and other stakeholders. The mission was first announced by the Finance Minister in the Union Budget 2024-25 (23 July 2024) and the Cabinet approval gave it formal sanction. The NCMM covers the full critical-minerals value chain: domestic exploration, mining, beneficiation, processing, recycling from end-of-life products, and acquisition of overseas mineral assets. The Geological Survey of India (GSI) is tasked with executing 1,200 exploration projects over the seven-year window (vs. 368 projects over the prior three years), expanded to offshore polymetallic-nodule provinces containing cobalt, REE, nickel and manganese. More than 100 critical-mineral blocks are slated for auction. Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL) — the JV of NALCO, HCL and MECL — is the designated vehicle for overseas acquisitions, with active Argentina lithium (CAMYEN SE, 15,703 ha) and Australia lithium/cobalt off-take pipelines. India's official critical-minerals list contains 30 commodities, of which 24 are inscribed in Part D of Schedule I of the MMDR Act 1957 (after the 2023 amendment), reserving central-government auction authority over them. The NCMM sets an explicit recycling target of 15-20% of domestic critical-mineral demand met from secondary sources (e-waste, battery scrap, industrial waste) by 2035. The mission also funds a National Centre of Excellence for Critical Minerals and offers customs-duty waivers on 25 critical minerals (announced in the same FY24-25 budget) to lower import costs while domestic capacity scales. NCMM is India's pull-side complement to the US IRA, EU Critical Raw Materials Act, Canada Critical Minerals Strategy and Australia Critical Minerals Strategy — a coordinated allied response to Chinese dominance over refined cobalt, REE, graphite and gallium/germanium. For India specifically it is framed as the supply-chain underpinning for FAME-III (EV adoption), the Semicon India programme (gallium/germanium/silicon), and the National Solar Mission (silicon, indium, tellurium, gallium for thin-film PV).

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).