The United States is urging G7 countries to reduce their dependence on China for the supply of rare earths and do it faster, Reuters has reported, citing an unnamed senior U.S. official.
“Urgency is the theme of the day. It’s a very big undertaking. There’s a lot of different angles, a lot of different countries involved and we really just need to move faster,” the official said.
The G7 is meeting with government officials from Australia, India, South Korea, and Mexico, which together account for as much as 60% of global rare earth demand, Reuters noted in its report. China, for its part, completely dominates the global rare earths supply chain, which has sparked growing concern among Western nations in recent years amid their push for electrification, which depends on rare earth supply. The growing hostility between the United States and its allies, and China has fueled this concern further as China signaled it was willing to use its dominant position in the sector to retaliate against tariff action from Washington.
“The United States is in the posture of calling everyone together, showing leadership, sharing what we have in mind going forward,” the U.S. official who spoke to Reuters said. “We’re ready to move with those who feel a similar level of urgency … and others can join as they come to the realization of how serious this is.”
Japan is already in a rush to secure rare earths from places other than China, after the latter imposed a ban on exports of goods to Japan that can be used for both military and civilian purposes. The list of banned goods includes several critical minerals, in addition to restrictions on rare earths specifically.
Since 2010, when an island dispute resulted in China squeezing rare earth exports to Japan, the latter has managed to reduce its reliance on China for those elements from 90% to 60%, Reuters noted in a report today. It did that by investing on overseas rare earth production, notably in Australia, and in rare earth recycling projects.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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