The U.S. government has been going all-in on rare earth metals after China used them as a bargaining chip earlier this year. It exposed a significant vulnerability that the Trump administration is pulling as many levers as possible to rectify.
Earlier this year, many rare earth companies in the U.S. received considerable investments and support to ramp up their production. And now, the push to secure rare earths is expanding to U.S. allies, too. President Donald Trump has signed a landmark rare earth metals agreement with Australia. He and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed an $8.5 billion critical minerals framework on Oct. 20, committing over $3 billion in government investments to boost rare earth production and processing.
