Despite tense bilateral relations, the United States and South Africa held this week their highest-level meeting so far this year to discuss potential resource deals in critical minerals, the Financial Times reported on Friday, quoting attendees of the meeting in Johannesburg.
The two countries have been in tense relations since U.S. President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year and accused South Africa of “white genocide.”
However, the Chinese grip on the global critical minerals market seems to have prompted the U.S. to seek opportunities for resource deals in South Africa, which produces minerals including manganese, vanadium, platinum, and chromium.
The talks were only at a very early stage, but they seem to point that the U.S. is willing to sign deals across Africa in a bid to break China’s dominance in critical minerals and rare earth elements.
Since China restricted exports of rare earth elements early in 2025, Western countries have raced to create mine-to-magnet supply chains to reduce dependence on Chinese supply in the key military and automotive industries.
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China holds a 59% share of the mining of rare earths, 91% in refining, and a whopping 94% in magnet manufacturing, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates.
The U.S. has responded by taking stakes in minerals mining companies, the launch of a U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve, known as Project Vault, and is leading efforts to break the Chinese stronghold on the pricing of these minerals critical for the defense and auto industries and national security.
Rising neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) supply from countries like the U.S. and Australia is set to reduce China’s market share to 69% by 2030 from 90% in 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) said in research in March.
“We’re seeing a surge in rare-earth investment as modern technologies demand more critical materials,” said Jack Baxter, Global Metals & Mining Analyst at BI and co-author of the report.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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