To defend against Chinese dominance of critical minerals, the US plans to form a trading bloc with its allies to uphold minimal prices.
US Vice President JD Vance announced plans to establish a critical minerals trade bloc with allies and partners, proposing coordinated price floors as Washington escalates efforts to loosen China’s grip on materials crucial to advanced manufacturing.
The Trump administration intends to employ tariffs to maintain minimum prices and shore up supplies of critical minerals used to make semiconductors, electric vehicles and advanced weapons.
What did JD Vance say?
Vance said the US-China trade war of the past year has exposed how dependent most countries are on critical minerals, the sale of which Beijing largely dominates. Therefore, collective action is needed to make the West self-reliant, he stressed.
“We want members to form a trading bloc among allies and partners, one that guarantees American access to American industrial might while also expanding production across the entire zone,” Vance said at the opening of a meeting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted with officials from 55 European, Asian and African nations.
“We want to eliminate that problem of people flooding into our markets with cheap critical minerals to undercut our domestic manufacturers,” Vance told a gathering without mentioning China.
“We will establish reference prices for critical minerals at each stage of production, … and for members of the preferential zone, these reference prices will operate as a floor maintained through adjustable tariffs to uphold pricing integrity”
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