China asked everyone to help keep the peace and security of global critical minerals supply chains on March 13, 2026, and said that small-circle rules should not be used to undermine international economic and trade order.
Upon being asked about a rumored plan pertaining to a trade agreement on critical minerals between the US, Japan, as well as the European Union – EU at the regular press conference on March 13, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said that an environment that is welcoming and accessible to everyone is good for every nation.
According to Guo, “An open and inclusive international trade environment beneficial to all serves the common interests of all countries. All parties have the responsibility to play a constructive role in keeping global industrial and supply chains on critical minerals stable and secure.”
It was Bloomberg that reported on March 13 that the US, Japan, and the EU are soon going to announce plans to lay the groundwork for a trade agreement when it comes to critical minerals. They said that China has gone on to threaten that it would indeed retaliate against the formation of a bloc, which would as well go ahead and target its exports.
The Office of the US Trade Representative happened to be in charge of the deal. They have been in charge of talks along with Brussels and Tokyo pertaining to the framework. People who have spoken on the condition of anonymity went on to tell Bloomberg that it would also lead talks for a trade deal, which would include a price floor and tariffs on the materials to prevent China from disrupting the market.
According to Reuters, the idea behind setting minimum prices via coordinated trade rules was to get private investors to pour money into processing and mining projects. projects. They want a price floor in order to make sure that suppliers get at least some amount of money back, which would help them offset their costs and also keep making things even when there is competition across the world. As per Zhou Mi, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on March 13 that “these kinds of mechanisms don’t do much to improve suppliers’ basic skills or technological abilities.”
The director of the Center for China-Europe Relations at Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies, Jian Junbo, said that the tariffs and other trade barriers could rather go ahead and raise the cost of buying critical minerals, hence making the consumers pay more and taking on more supply chain threats.
It is well to be noted that people who watch the sector said that the real result of this US-led agreement is going to be super low because of the ongoing trust trouble caused due to US unilateralism. If interest rates keep going up, it could as well go on to make supply chains even more unstable and, thereby, cost everyone a lot of money. Tariffs or price floors, on the contrary, would not really enhance production or technology.
Interests that are at odds
Said Bloomberg that the US wants to start talks with the EU as well as Japan on a trade deal on critical minerals in April 2026, right after the comment period for stakeholders concludes on March 19.
However, there happen to be clear divisions and conflicts of interest between both the US and its allies. Politico said on March 11, 2026, that the EU and the US are getting closer to a deal in order to cut down on dependence on China for critical mineral inputs. But the deal could end up establishing an unequal partnership dominated by Washington.
Tobias Gehrke, Politico’s senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that Europe should not have any false hopes about working with the Americans. Gehrke said it’s America First, even when it comes to minerals. The report said that the plan encompassed a price floor to support other sources of supply. It could as well turn into a mechanism wherein the Europeans end up sponsoring the priority access to the US when it comes to the critical minerals. The report also goes on to quote the CEO Andreas Kroll, from Noble Elements, a German company that trades rare-earth commodities, as saying that Europe happens to be sitting at the kids’ table as compared to the US. Kroll added that many of their mid-sized customers are wondering if they ought to shift their production to the US due to supply issues.
A Reuters report from March 6 states that Japan and France, as well as Canada, have been developing alternatives to a US-led trade bloc to obtain important minerals and reduce their dependence on China. This is because they are worried regarding the power that the US has in the EU. According to the US, it wanted to build a group of allies centered around China by means of a critical minerals alliance, yet these three G7 key players are rather going their own way.
Zhou said that in recent years, it has become more difficult for Western countries so as to keep supply chains stable, particularly for critical minerals. This is mostly due to the fact that it has been hard to make progress when it comes to refining and processing technologies. Nevertheless, he said that incorrect assumptions about the market and false accusations against China could just as well take the attention away from this crucial link.
The US, the EU, and Japan all want to make the supply pressures easy from the demand side. But their interests happen to be very different. Zhou adds that the US is still the most powerful country and that it places the highest priority in terms of absolute security and stability on its critical minerals supply chains. It therefore anticipates allies like Europe and Japan catering to its strategic needs. He also said that policy prejudice will make it harder for other nations to get constant supplies and make global critical minerals supply chains less secure.
Zhou remarks that depending on tariffs or price floors will hardly improve production capacity or technological capabilities. Rather, these kinds of interventions could as well go on to hurt market-driven innovation and not lead to actual economies of scale.