(DCNF)—President Donald Trump is assembling a coalition of US allies across the globe to challenge China’s dominance over rare earth minerals and technology.
Singapore, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, the UK and Israel are among a band of nations working with the U.S. under the “Pax Silica” agreement signed Friday to challenge China’s near-total grip on rare earth mineral processing and extraction. The agreement aims to secure the supply chain for rare earths essential in the fabrication of advanced computer chips that are utilized in a wide range of applications from AI systems to America’s arsenal of weapons.
The coalition brings together a seemingly scattered band of U.S.-aligned nations from across the globe, including many long-time allies like Japan and Australia alongside relatively new partners such as the UAE.
“The United States is organizing a coalition of countries around the principle of building a secure, resilient, and innovation-driven ecosystem across the entire global technology supply chain — from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics,” the State Department wrote in a statement outlining the agreement.
While the U.S. has a plethora of rare earth deposits, the ability to use them in applications like computer chips is heavily dependent on refinement capability. Currently, China holds nearly all of the world’s capacity for rare earth refinement.
The U.S. has made multiple moves to rectify the disparity, such as the Pentagon purchasing a majority stake in MP Minerals, which pledged to build up refinement capability while utilizing one of America’s only rare earth mines.
The nations in the new coalition will partner chiefly to secure resources needed in the supply chain going into AI development, according to the State Department. Dependence on Chinese rare earth minerals was recently brought into sharp focus when a temporary restriction on rare earth exports to the U.S. proved to be a key point of leverage in trade negotiations.
However, the Trump administration recently gave clearance to American chip giant NVIDIA to sell their advanced chips to Beijing, a move that came with staunch criticism from both parties.
The State Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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