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The UK Department for Business and Trade launched a £50M critical minerals programme at Teesside's Wilton Centre on 22 June 2026, announced by Industry Minister Chris McDonald. The programme has three pillars: a £25M Critical Minerals Accelerator funding collaborative extraction, processing and recycling projects; a £20M Magnet Hub establishing a national facility for rare earth permanent magnet manufacturing and skills training; and a £5M Demand Aggregation Platform pooling UK industrial demand to unlock supply partnerships. The programme operationalises the UK Critical Minerals Strategy 'Vision 2035' (November 2025) and marks the first UK capital commitment to domestic critical minerals processing at scale.

At the 52nd G7 Summit in Évian-les-Bains (June 15–17, 2026, under France's G7 Presidency), the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued a dedicated leaders' declaration committing to secure supply chains for critical minerals by diversifying sourcing, reducing excessive dependencies on any single foreign supplier, and coordinating investment and market-development tools across G7 members. The declaration references the Partnership On Wide Energy and Resources Resilience Asia (POWERR Asia) as a named allied cooperation vehicle, and calls for stronger G7 coordination on emergency supply-chain response and private-capital mobilisation for critical mineral projects outside of concentrated supplier states. This is the first standalone G7 leaders' declaration specifically dedicated to critical minerals supply-chain security, moving beyond language embedded in broader summit communiqués.

South Africa's Cabinet approved the Industrial Development Strategy 2026 (IDS 2026) at its regular meeting of 3 June 2026 (following a Special Cabinet meeting on 13 May 2026). DTIC published the strategy document on 8 June 2026. IDS 2026 is South Africa's first Industrial Development Strategy to formally integrate critical mineral supply-chain security into the national industrial policy framework. Key provisions: (1) PERMIT-TO-PROCESSING LINKAGE — mining permit allocations in new blocks are conditioned on binding domestic processing commitments for priority commodities; (2) PRIORITY BENEFICIATION SECTORS — chrome, platinum-group metals (PGMs), cobalt, lithium, and rare earth elements designated as mandatory value-addition targets; (3) INDUSTRIAL SECURITY CLASSIFICATION — strategic mineral sectors listed alongside steel, automotive, and aerospace as active industrial-policy industries where government takes a direct coordination role; (4) CROSS-DEPARTMENT COORDINATION — DTIC coordinates with DMPR on permit conditions, embedding beneficiation mandates into the licensing regime. The IDS 2026 is the operative implementation instrument for the permit-conditioned beneficiation mandate signalled in the May 2025 Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy; the two documents are functionally complementary but legally distinct — the strategy sets direction, IDS sets implementation obligations.

The DRC Council of Ministers, at its 87th extraordinary session on 29 May 2026, adopted decrees expanding the list of strategic mineral substances from 3 (cobalt, germanium, coltan) to 9, adding lithium, tantalum, niobium, tungsten, uranium, and rare earth elements. Under the 2018 Mining Code framework, strategic minerals attract a 10% royalty versus the standard 3.5% for base metals, representing a nearly threefold increase in the state's royalty take on the newly classified substances. The measure was presented by Minister of Mines Louis Watum Kabamba and confirmed by RTNC state broadcaster and Bloomberg reporting (31 May 2026). DRC produces an estimated 60–70% of global tantalum supply; the reclassification extends upstream royalty escalation to six additional high-value critical materials — including Manono lithium deposit output, tantalum refinery streams, and any tungsten, niobium, uranium, or REE operations active or under development.

On 26 May 2026 at the Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting in New Delhi, the United States, Japan, Australia, and India signed the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework, committing to mobilise up to USD 20 billion in combined government and private-sector investment for mining, processing, refining, and recycling of critical minerals across the Indo-Pacific. The framework coordinates investment-policy tools, exploration support, market-development instruments, and supply-chain financing across all four members, with the explicit aim of diversifying critical mineral supply chains away from single-point dependencies in processing. It is the first Quad-format multilateral critical minerals commitment and represents a structural coordination layer atop existing bilateral frameworks (US-Japan, US-India, Japan-France) and national strategies.

Zimbabwe's Ministry of Mines and Mining Development gazetted a formal Mineral Classification and Declaration on 22 May 2026, signed by Minister Dr Polite Kambamura, classifying 14 minerals as "critical" (nickel, cobalt, graphite, copper, REE, chrome, PGMs, manganese, antimony, uranium, ruthenium, tungsten, niobium — plus metallurgical coal as "special critical") and 10 as "strategic" (limestone, potash, phosphorus, iron ore, pyrites, oil, gas, coal, gold, diamonds). The declaration mandates minimum state shareholding through designated Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) in all critical-mineral exploitation operations and prohibits export of listed minerals in raw or unbeneficiated form without a ministerially-approved conditional transitional plan specifying a local beneficiation timeline.

The Government of Sierra Leone officially launched the National Strategy for Critical Minerals 2026-2031 on 20 May 2026 at Sierra Leone Mining Week (Freetown International Conference Centre), with Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh delivering the keynote address alongside Minister of Mines Julius Daniel Mattai. The strategy commits to attracting USD 2.5 billion in exploration and mining investment, establishing 3-5 domestic mineral-processing plants, and achieving USD 1.5 billion in annual value-added mineral exports by 2031 -- up from a current raw-mineral export base of approximately USD 1.3 billion. Scope covers lithium, graphite, bauxite, cobalt, coltan, rutile, diamonds, iron ore, and rare-earth elements, and frames the national minerals agenda under the theme "Responsible Mining, Value Multiplication and Shared Prosperity."

Zimbabwe's Cabinet approved a comprehensive Minerals Value Chain Framework on April 14-15, 2026, following a presentation by Vice-President Dr Constantino Chiwenga. The framework introduces four binding instruments: a mandatory Value-Added Compliance Certificate (VACC) required for any mineral export permit; eight regional beneficiation Special Economic Zones; a mine-to-market smart tracking corridor; and a national analytical-laboratory network anchored at state universities. The framework operationalises the existing raw-mineral export ban architecture into a coherent governance and compliance regime, targeting zero leakage and full domestic value-addition across Zimbabwe's critical-mineral endowment.

On 1 April 2026, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae and President Emmanuel Macron held a Tokyo summit and signed a bilateral roadmap on cooperation in critical minerals — the first formal Japan-France instrument on supply-chain resilience for rare earths and other critical materials. The centrepiece is joint government support for Caremag, a heavy rare-earths refining project in southern France due to begin operations in late 2026, with backing from Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), Iwatani Corporation, and the French government; the project targets approximately 20% of Japan's future demand for dysprosium and terbium (heavy rare-earth oxides used in EV motors, offshore-wind turbines, and electronic components). The two leaders also launched parallel high-level dialogues on dual-use AI, quantum technologies, space (including debris mitigation), cybersecurity, and a joint declaration on startups and innovation, expressing "serious concerns" over export controls on critical minerals and other materials affecting global supply chains — an explicit reference to China's tightening rare-earths export regime.

On 20 March 2026, METI/MOFA (Japan) and the US Departments of State and Energy jointly published the "Japan–United States Critical Minerals Project Cooperation Joint Fact Sheet," identifying five specific upstream critical-mineral projects spanning four continents (Australia, Tanzania, Brazil, UAE, Namibia) to receive structured joint financing through JOGMEC equity and offtake instruments and US DFC/Ex-Im Bank facilities. The document operationalises the October 2025 US-Japan Critical Minerals Framework and the same-day Action Plan, converting policy-framework language into named project commitments covering nickel, lithium, battery-anode graphite, and heavy rare earths. It was released the day following the Takaichi–Trump summit on 19 March 2026 and follows the Critical Minerals Investment Ministerial convened in Tokyo on 14 March 2026.

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 12 March 2026, Chilean Foreign Affairs Minister Francisco Pérez Mackenna and US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau signed the Joint Declaration for the Establishment of Consultations on Critical Minerals and Rare Earth Elements at La Moneda Palace in the presence of President José Antonio Kast. The Declaration establishes a bilateral consultation framework to secure reliable supply chains for critical minerals and rare earth elements, commits both sides to explore public/private financing for qualifying investment projects (via DFC and EXIM Bank), and mandates a first round of consultations within 15 days of signing with the goal of reaching a more detailed cooperation agreement. Chile's strategic profile as the world's largest copper producer and third-largest lithium producer makes this the first bilateral critical minerals partnership under the Kast administration and positions Chile inside the FORGE-adjacent US-allied supply-chain architecture.

On 26 February 2026 USTR published a Federal Register notice (90 FR 9686, docket USTR-2026-0034) inviting public comment on the design of a plurilateral Agreement on Trade in Critical Minerals and accompanying policy actions to strengthen critical-mineral supply-chain resilience. The notice signals that the agreement under consideration would include "a commitment by all parties to implement minimum prices or other price mechanisms, with appropriate border measures" — a coordinated price-floor/border-adjustment regime across like-minded partners to incentivise ex-China mining, processing, and refining investment. Comments were due 19 March 2026.

On 21 February 2026 in New Delhi, during the State Visit of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, India and Brazil signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Field of Critical Minerals between India's Ministry of Mines and Brazil's Ministry of Mines and Energy. The MoU establishes a bilateral framework spanning the entire critical-minerals value chain — exploration, mining, processing, recycling, and refining — with explicit focus on rare-earth elements, lithium, nickel, cobalt, niobium, manganese, and other strategic minerals. It was issued alongside a broader Joint Statement targeting USD 30 billion in bilateral trade by 2030 and a ten-year strategic-partnership roadmap covering AI, defence, energy, agriculture, and digital transformation.

France's third Programmation Pluriannuelle de l'Énergie (PPE3), adopted by Décret n° 2026-76 of 12 February 2026 and published in the Journal Officiel on 13 February 2026, sets the framework for public energy policy in metropolitan continental France from 2026 to 2035. The decree codifies a 60% decarbonised-energy-consumption target by 2030 (from 42% in 2023), a 34% electrification share (585 TWh), and a reduction of fossil fuels to 40% of final energy consumption by 2030 (from 58% in 2023). It also formalises the EPR2 new-build programme (6 + 8 optional reactors) within the long-range generation-mix architecture, pairs with the Stratégie Nationale Bas-Carbone (SNBC3) for a net-zero-2050 trajectory, and includes an annex on clean-mobility development (SDMP).

The Council of Ministers of the Republic of Mali, presided over by General Assimi Goïta at Koulouba Palace, adopted on 6 February 2026 texts creating Société de Patrimoine Minier du Mali (SOPAMIM S.A.) — a wholly state-owned société anonyme charged with holding and managing all state participations in mining companies, implementing the 10% free-carry + optional 20% paid + 5% national-private participation architecture introduced by the 2023 Mining Code. SOPAMIM provides the single corporate vehicle through which renegotiated or newly-awarded state stakes in foreign-operated mines (including Barrick Gold Loulo-Gounkoto, B2Gold Fekola, Allied Gold Sadiola, Resolute Mining Syama, and Endeavour Mining Hounde-Mali) will be consolidated, operationalising the Code Minier's mandate for a *société de patrimoine* and closing the corporate-vehicle gap in Mali's AES/Sahel resource-nationalism architecture.

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, 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, 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 1 February 2026 Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled India's Union Budget 2026-27, with Customs Notification No. 02/2026-Customs (dated 1 Feb 2026, effective 2 Feb 2026) implementing the customs-duty package. The notification zero-rates basic customs duty (BCD) on (i) capital goods imported for domestic processing of critical minerals — crushing, beneficiation, refining, chemical-processing, separation/purification, and metallurgical/alloy-making equipment; (ii) capital goods for lithium-ion cell manufacturing for battery energy storage systems (BESS), extending the 2024-25 EV-cell exemption to stationary storage; and (iii) twelve additional critical minerals plus cobalt powder and lithium-ion battery scrap, on top of the 25 critical minerals already exempted in the FY2024-25 budget. In parallel, critical minerals (including monazite / rare-earth concentrate) are migrated from the customs-exemption notification mechanism into the First Schedule of the Customs Tariff Act at Nil BCD, effective 1 May 2026 — a tariffisation step that locks the rate into primary legislation rather than annually renewable notification. The Budget also commits to dedicated critical-mineral / rare-earth-magnet processing corridors in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Structurally this is the fiscal/tariff layer underneath the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM, Jan 2025) and the National Manufacturing Mission (Feb 2025): NCMM funds capex and overseas asset acquisition (₹34,300 cr), this Budget removes the import-duty drag on the equipment needed to actually run domestic processing lines. It complements the REPM scheme (Nov 2025) for sintered rare-earth magnets and Semicon Mission 2.0 (Feb 2026) on the demand side for refined critical minerals.

On 27 January 2026 President Gabriel Boric presented Chile's National Critical Minerals Strategy (Estrategia Nacional de Minerales Críticos, NCMS) — the country's first horizontal critical-minerals governance framework, identifying 14 minerals as priorities for development and establishing five strategic pillars: production and diversification of critical minerals; responsible mining; development opportunities based on critical minerals; enabling capacities; and strategic international positioning. The strategy was developed through a multi-year participatory process coordinated through Cochilco and Sernageomin, involving a 16-member high-level advisory committee, 120 specialists from 56 institutions, regional workshops and a public consultation. It materially broadens Chile's mineral policy beyond the 2023 lithium-specific National Lithium Strategy to a cross-cutting framework that underpins future bilateral critical-minerals MOUs and positions Chile as a strategic raw-materials partner for the US, EU and Japan under their respective IRA/CRMA/GX supply-chain frameworks.

India's Ministry of Mines on 19 January 2026 notified the country's first national Tailings Policy, establishing a standardised framework for the systematic exploration, sampling and economic evaluation of critical and strategic minerals from secondary sources — tailings, mine dumps, slag, anode slimes, red mud and fly ash — at existing mines. The policy designates the Geological Survey of India (GSI), Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) and Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD) as the implementing agencies, and mandates inter-ministry coordination across the Ministries of Coal, Mines, Petroleum and Atomic Energy because critical-mineral host materials cut across sectoral jurisdictions. It supplements the National Critical Mineral Mission (2025-01-29) by adding a secondary-source recovery track aimed at lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth elements found as companion minerals in legacy mining waste, with the explicit objective of reducing import dependency.

The Government of Kazakhstan, under Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov, launched a second-generation geological exploration programme allocating 240 billion tenge (~USD 500 million) over 2026–2028 across 20 projects covering approximately 100,000 km² at 1:50,000 scale in 11 regions (Akmola, Aktobe, Almaty, East Kazakhstan, Karaganda, Kostanay, North Kazakhstan, Mangystau, Turkistan, Abai, Ulytau). The programme targets copper, gold, lead, zinc, rare earth elements, barite, and bauxite deposits using aerogeophysical, geochemical, and seismic-exploration methods together with Earth remote-sensing data analysis. It represents a ~50% uplift over the USD 469 million invested cumulatively in geological exploration over the prior 15 years, and modernises Soviet-era 1:200,000-scale mapping to 1:50,000-scale resolution across priority areas of 30,000 km² annually. The programme directly peers Western critical- minerals supply-diversification efforts anchored by the November 2025 US–Kazakhstan Critical Minerals MOU and the EU–Kazakhstan Strategic Partnership Roadmap 2025–2026.

On 2 January 2026 the Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources concluded the 9th Exploration Licensing Round — the largest mining-licensing round in the Kingdom's history — by awarding 172 mining sites (including 76 sites cleared via multi-round public auction) to 24 companies and consortia drawn from 26 qualified bidders. The round covered over 24,000 km² spanning the Ad-Duwaihi/Nabitah gold belt (Riyadh region) and the Nuqrah and Sukhaybirah/As-Safra gold belts (Madinah and Qassim regions). Successful bidders committed over SAR 671 million of exploration spend in the first two years of their work programmes; total project investment across the round's awarded licences exceeds SAR 44 billion (~USD 11.7 bn) and represents a 220% YoY surge in licensing-round commitments versus the 2024 round. The round operationalises auction provisions of the 2020 Mining Investment Law (Royal Decree M/47) and is the first Saudi licensing round to formally include the Aramco-Ma'aden lithium JV (Manara Minerals) on the bidder side.

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%).

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia signed Peraturan Menteri ESDM Nomor 18 Tahun 2025 ("Permen ESDM 18/2025") on 14 November 2025, Indonesia's first comprehensive ministerial-level framework for the exploration, designation, allocation, and utilisation of rare-earth resources. The regulation operationalises Government Regulation PP 39/2025 (signed 11 September 2025), which inserted a dedicated rare-earths article (Article 18A) into PP 96/2021 on the implementation of mineral and coal mining business activities. It empowers the Minister to designate BUMN (state-owned enterprises) as preferred operators of rare-earth mining and processing, mandates that REE output prioritise domestic strategic industries (defence, electric vehicle batteries, advanced technology, permanent magnets), and routes inventarisation through the geological agency before WIUP (mining business permit areas) are awarded.

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 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.

Brazil's Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) and the Serviço Geológico do Brasil (SGB) released the final report of the Plano Decenal de Pesquisa de Recursos Minerais (PlanGEO 2026-2035) on 24 September 2025. The plan defines 145 priority research areas selected through public consultation for ten years of focused geological mapping and mineral-resources research, prioritising ten commodities — rare earths, lithium, copper, nickel, manganese, graphite, tin, gold, phosphate, and potassium — covering the battery / magnets demand spectrum plus food-security inputs. The plan is enabled by Portaria Normativa nº 72/GM/MME of 13 March 2024 and operates on a 2026-2035 horizon, with a SGB/MME budget-and-staffing scenario proposing up to a 50% increase in execution team and a 100% expansion in annual financial investment.

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 8 September 2025, the UK Ministry of Defence published the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025 — "Making Defence an Engine for Growth" (CP 1388) — the first comprehensive cabinet-level UK defence industrial strategy in over a decade and the sector plan for Defence under the UK Modern Industrial Strategy umbrella (IS-8). The strategy was published alongside the Strategic Defence Review 2025 and operationalises the largest sustained defence- spending increase since the Cold War (rising to 2.6% of GDP by 2027 with ambition to 3% in the next Parliament). It defines six priority outcomes (growth, backing UK businesses, defence innovation, resilient industrial base, procurement transformation, enduring partnerships); establishes UK Defence Innovation (UKDI) within the MOD with a ringfenced £400m budget to accelerate dual-use technology; identifies priority defence capabilities (combat air, complex weapons, directed-energy weapons, next- generation land and maritime systems) plus dual-use sub-sectors (quantum, drones/autonomy, space, AI, cyber, engineering biology, advanced connectivity); and flags resilience priorities in steel, construction, energetic materials, batteries, semiconductors and rare earths.

Parliament of India passed the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2025 (Act No. 28 of 2025) — Lok Sabha on 12 August 2025, Rajya Sabha on 19 August 2025, Presidential assent on 21 August 2025, in force 1 September 2025 — amending the parent MMDR Act, 1957. The Act removes the prior 50% cap on captive-mine production eligible for open sale (allowing captive-block holders unrestricted third-party sale after meeting end-use requirements), widens the National Mineral Exploration Trust into the National Mineral Exploration and Development Trust (NMEDT) with mandate extended to mine development, offshore areas, and overseas acquisition operations, raises the NMEDT royalty contribution from 2% to 3%, waives the auction premium for the 24 critical and strategic minerals listed in Part D of the First Schedule (including lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, REE, PGM, beryllium, and antimony), and establishes a statutory authority to register and regulate Mineral Exchanges as electronic commodity-trading platforms for minerals and metals.

The Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Armenia, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, approved the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan for Promoting Exports of the Republic of Armenia and its accompanying Action Plan on 31 July 2025. The Strategy targets a 1.7-fold increase in total Armenian exports to USD 16.9 billion by 2030 (USD 10.3 billion services + USD 6.6 billion goods), with an implementation envelope of approximately AMD 98 billion (~USD 250 million). It designates critical minerals (copper-molybdenum concentrates, gold, antimony, emerging rare-earth-element zones), IT and tech services, agri-processing, and green-transition equipment as priority export categories, and operationalises Armenia's ongoing reorientation of export geography away from Russia/EAEU toward EU, US, Gulf, and Asian markets.

Law No. 7554 (Bazı Kanunlarda Değişiklik Yapılmasına Dair Kanun), adopted by the Grand National Assembly on 19 July 2025 and published in Resmî Gazete No. 32965 on 24 July 2025, amends Mining Law No. 3213 to introduce the first statutory definition of "stratejik ve kritik madenler" (strategic and critical minerals) in Turkish law. The law creates a Board override mechanism chaired by a Vice-Presidential delegate that can compel permit issuance for strategic/critical mineral projects when lower authorities have refused, designates MAPEG as the licensing authority within one month of a favourable Board decision, and mandates EIA Positive Decisions for all in-scope projects (eliminating the prior "EIA Not Required" option). Transitional provisions preserve old-regime rules for existing licence-holders until 1 January 2026.

On 18 July 2025 Kazakhstan's Parliament adopted Law No. 215-VIII ZRK "On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Taxation Matters," which abolishes the legacy priority-investment-project and special-investment-contract regimes under the Entrepreneurial Code and replaces them with three new contractual instruments — the Investment Agreement, the Investment Obligations Agreement, and the Simplified Investment Contract — effective 1 January 2026. The law is the binding legal operationalisation of the October 2024 Concept of Investment Policy until 2029 (filed), the US-Kazakhstan Critical Minerals MOU of November 2025 (filed), and the EU-Kazakhstan Strategic Partnership Roadmap 2025-2026 (filed), providing a contractual-certainty architecture for the USD 150 billion FDI-attraction target that previous "priority investment project" frameworks lacked. A statutory effectiveness-evaluation obligation (first of its kind in Central Asia) for assessing the socio-economic impact of granted investment preferences enters force separately on 1 July 2026.

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.

South Africa's Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) released the Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy on 20 May 2025 following Cabinet approval, alongside the gazetting of the Mineral Resources Development Bill (MRDB) 2025. The strategy classifies platinum group metals, manganese, iron ore, chrome ore and coal as "high criticality" and identifies seven intervention areas — exploration, beneficiation at source, R&D coordination by Mintek, regional integration (SADC), financial instruments, energy security, and international partnerships positioning South Africa for CRMA-equivalent partnerships with the US and EU. It is the first formal South African industrial-policy framework for critical-mineral beneficiation and the first ZA action in the IPTM register.

On 8 May 2025 the Verkhovna Rada ratified the 30 April 2025 Washington intergovernmental agreement establishing the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund (draft law 0309, 338 of 450 MPs in favour); President Zelenskyy signed the ratification law on 12 May 2025. On 4 June 2025 the Rada then adopted in second reading and as a whole the implementing amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine (draft law 13256, 309 MPs in favour), which credit half of royalties from new licences for the extraction of minerals of national importance (per Annex A of Cabinet Resolution 845) and half of state share revenues under new production-sharing agreements to a State Budget special fund earmarked for transfer to the joint Fund. The Fund is jointly managed 50/50 by the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and a Ukrainian state entity, gives the US first-look preferential access to new lithium, titanium, REE, graphite, uranium and oil-and-gas projects, and is the structural anchor of the 2025 US critical-minerals pivot away from China.

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.

Pakistan launched the National Minerals Harmonisation Framework 2025 and the Mines & Minerals Act 2025 at the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum (Islamabad, 8–9 April 2025), consolidating six regulatory frameworks, eight legislative instruments, and 36 rule sets into a unified federal-provincial licensing system. The framework — convened by the SIFC and Deputy PM Ishaq Dar — establishes a two-tier licensing structure (large-scale: PKR 500M+; small-scale: PKR 25M–500M), mandatory appellate tribunal, and a "Mines and Minerals Force" to counter illegal mining in Sindh and Balochistan. Fiscal-incentive reforms aim to raise investor IRR from 14.5% to approximately 18%, underpinned by Reko Diq as the flagship precedent for future large-scale foreign-capital mineral projects.

New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), under Resources Minister Hon Shane Jones, launched the country's first national Minerals Strategy and first Critical Minerals List on 31 January 2025 at OceanaGold's Waihi gold mining operation in Hauraki. The Critical Minerals List identifies 37 minerals essential to New Zealand's economy, national security, and technology needs — including gold and metallurgical coal added in the final version (up from 35 minerals in the September 2024 draft consultation). The Minerals Strategy sets a target of doubling New Zealand mineral exports from approximately NZD 1.2 billion/year to NZD 3 billion by 2035, supported by a Wood Mackenzie advisory assessment (December 2024) that identified 21 of the 37 listed minerals as domestically produced or having domestic production potential.