Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese became the latest leader to use critical minerals as a fast-track into U.S. President Donald Trump’s good graces, signing a deal during his visit to Washington on Monday that will give the United States greater access to Australia’s critical mineral reserves and infrastructure.
As part of the deal, the two countries will jointly invest $3 billion in critical mineral projects over the next six months, aiming to unearth minerals worth an estimated $53 billion, according to the White House. The Pentagon will also invest in an advanced refinery in Western Australia to mine the mineral gallium.
“In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
Critical minerals and rare earths have underpinned several of Trump’s foreign-policy moves in his second term, from peace deals to tariff threats. It’s easy to see why: The commodities, around 50 of which are considered vital to U.S. security by the U.S. Geological Survey, are indispensable raw materials in many advanced military technologies including missiles and fighter jets. The problem is that China accounts for the vast majority of rare earth and critical mineral production and processing, a stranglehold it has been increasingly willing to weaponize in trade negotiations.
Read more in “The Scramble for Critical Minerals,” FP’s collection of essential articles on a through line in U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy agenda. Explore the full collection.
Australia is the latest in a string of countries aiming to help Washington hedge against that dominance—and help themselves in the process by currying favor with Trump. Here are some of the others.
Ukraine
Critical minerals made their way into one of Trump’s most fraught diplomatic efforts: negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
In February, Trump demanded $500 billion worth of Ukraine’s minerals to compensate the United States for the aid it had already given Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously suggested that he was open to offering the United States access to the country’s resources as a way of placating the U.S. leader and maintaining his future support for Kyiv’s war effort. However, Zelensky also made it clear that he couldn’t “sell our country” and refused to agree to the Trump administration’s initial proposal.
In late April, months after Trump’s infamous dressing-down of Zelensky in the White House, Ukraine and the United States signed a deal for American companies to get preferential access to the 100-odd Ukrainian deposits of critical minerals such as lithium and titanium.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Even in an African continent that is rich in critical minerals, Congo stands out. The central African country is the world’s biggest supplier of tantalum and cobalt, with large reserves of other commodities such as gold and copper. China has spent years establishing a foothold in Congo and other mineral-rich African countries—a dominance that successive U.S. administrations have tried to break.
Trump’s latest attempt came in June, when he helped broker a deal to end months of military hostilities between Congo and neighboring Rwanda. The deal includes cooperation between the two countries on critical minerals, paving the way for greater U.S. access to those mineral reserves in exchange for security guarantees.
But those parts of the agreement, which have been the subject of dissent from U.S. lawmakers, are still being negotiated, and the peace deal itself remains tenuous.
Pakistan
U.S. officials had been signaling for months that they were interested in access to Pakistan’s vast critical mineral reserves, and in early September, Pakistan delivered. The Pakistani government signed a $500 million agreement with the American company U.S. Strategic Metals, giving it access to minerals such as antimony and copper.
Pakistan delivered the first shipment of those minerals to the United States earlier this month. The South Asian country’s critical mineral and metal deposits are estimated to span more than 230,000 square miles—a landmass more than twice the size of the United Kingdom.
Above and Beyond
Trump has also tried to seize a bigger piece of the mineral pie in somewhat unconventional ways. His Department of Defense became the largest shareholder of U.S. rare earth mining company MP Materials back in July, and more recently the Trump administration even purchased stakes in two Canadian critical minerals companies.
Critical minerals were also a key driver of the U.S. president’s early-term obsession with taking over Greenland—either through a purchase or through force—which ultimately did not come to fruition.
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