Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday the Trump administration is pursuing a critical-minerals trading alliance with representatives from more than 50 countries, pitching enforceable price floors and a preferential trade zone as a way to reduce reliance on China for rare earth supply chains.
On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance spoke to representatives from more than 50 countries at the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by the U.S. Department of State in Washington.
Vance said the administration is proposing what he described as a “preferential trade zone” for critical minerals, designed to be protected from external disruptions through enforceable price floors. “This morning, the Trump administration is proposing a concrete mechanism to return the global critical minerals market to a healthier, more competitive state,” Vance said, according to The Daily Wire.
The administration’s push comes as the United States and other countries seek to reduce heavy reliance on China in rare earth supply chains. The Daily Wire cited figures that China controls about 70% of rare earth mining and 90% of processing; those specific percentages were not independently confirmed in the other public materials reviewed for this story.
Vance also said the United States wants to diversify supply chains and prevent foreign companies or governments from flooding markets with low-priced minerals to undercut domestic manufacturers, The Daily Wire reported.
The event followed the White House rollout of “Project Vault,” a supply-chain initiative to establish a U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve through an independently governed public-private partnership. The Export-Import Bank of the United States said its board approved a direct loan of up to $10 billion to support Project Vault. EXIM described the effort as intended to help domestic manufacturers secure access to essential raw materials during periods of market disruption.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged the gathering to produce concrete outcomes rather than more meetings. In remarks reported by The Tribune, Rubio said the United States had “outsourced our economic security and our very future” as it shifted away from less “glamorous” parts of industrial supply chains, leaving it “at the mercy of whoever controlled the supply chains for these minerals.”
Separately, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced new critical-minerals cooperation steps with U.S. partners. On February 4, Greer said the United States, the European Commission and Japan intend to develop action plans aimed at supply-chain resilience, including coordinated mechanisms such as border-adjusted price floors. Greer also announced enactment of a U.S.-Mexico action plan that includes exploring border-adjusted price floors and how such mechanisms could be incorporated into a binding plurilateral agreement.
Also on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he had an “excellent” phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to reports from multiple news outlets, Trump said the call covered topics including trade, Taiwan and Russia’s war in Ukraine, among other issues, and he described his relationship with Xi as strong. Some reports also said Trump raised potential increased Chinese purchases of U.S. energy and other goods, though detailed, mutually confirmed readouts of specific commercial commitments were not available in the public reporting reviewed for this story.
