EU seeks to partner with US & G7 in response to the growing restrictions on rare earth mineral exports. This move happens to come as China recently, went on to broaden the restrictions pertaining to rare earth mineral exports by way of including five additional elements as per the new regulations.
It also went ahead and executed stricter rules that particularly target users within the semiconductor industry thereby compelling that EU seeks to partner with US & G7.
Apparently, China goes on to produce over 90% of the processed rare earths in the world, which are pretty necessary in products like electric vehicles as well as military radars.
These measures had been introduced ahead of the proposed meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
The European Trade Commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, went on to describe these measures to be unjustified.
It is well to be noted that the EU trade ministers, while meeting in Denmark, went on to express their critical concern on the issue.
Notably, previous controls by China in April 2025 led to worldwide shortages, effecting industries like car manufacturing, till the time the deals with Europe as well as the US weakened the supply crunch.
Lars Rasmussen, the Danish Foreign Minister, stressed the need for a united and tough EU response, underscoring the significance of partnership with the US.
Rasmussen added that they also need to be quite realistic. This happens to be actually an area of common interest with their friends in the US. If they stick together, they can much better go on to pressure China to act in a just way.
Interestingly, Sefcovic went on to suggest that G7 coordination could very well involve diversifying supply through advancing joint projects in extracting or even processing crucial minerals.
He further said that, of course, these projects do take time; however, with this signal they have received from China, it is quite clear that they have to focus on speeding up these processes as much as they can.
It was very recently reported by the Financial Times that the Pentagon is looking to acquire almost $1bn worth of critical minerals, which is going to be a part of its global spree so as to build stockpiles and at the same time also lessen the dominance shown by China when it comes to these essential metals.