In advance of President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to South Korea later this month—where he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since 2019—China announced that it has expanded its restrictions on rare earth and permanent magnet exports. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s Announcement No. 61 of 2025 implements the strictest rare earth and permanent magnet export controls to date. The move both strengthens Beijing’s leverage in upcoming talks while also undercutting U.S. efforts to bolster its industrial base....

Broader value of the legislation is in strengthening commercial diplomacy beyond mining in Africa ...

The Issue...

Beijing has a long track record of flooding markets, pulling back, and over-producing again...

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), first signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 2000, is a unilateral U.S. trade preference program set to expire in September 2025. Its pending reauthorization has sparked debate over whether—and how—it should be extended and reformed. A failure to extend AGOA could have larger ramifications at a time when the United States is doubling down on its commercial diplomacy—and more specifically, its mineral diplomacy efforts—with Africa....

On August 4, on the 60th anniversary of the Cook Islands’ becoming a self-governing state, the United States and Cook Islands announced bilateral cooperation to advance deep-sea mining exploration in Cook Islands waters. This comes on the heels of an executive order (EO) titled “Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources” that President Trump signed in April this year, paving the way for deep-sea resource exploration and extraction both within U.S. territorial waters and in international waters....

The United States led global production of rare earth elements (REEs) until the mid-1990s, when China emerged as the dominant supplier. China maintained near-total control of the market until 2012. This monopoly began to face limited competition with the entry of two commercial producers: U.S.-based Molycorp, which later declared bankruptcy, and Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths. Today, REEs are once again in the spotlight as China has leveraged its market dominance by imposing export restrictions that limit U.S. access to these key minerals....

Shift to commercial diplomacy is a promising step towards integrating African nations into global economy...

On July 9, 2025, President Trump announced the imposition of a sweeping 50 percent tariff on all imported copper, effective August 1. The announcement followed a five-month investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, through which the administration concluded that strengthening domestic copper production and reducing reliance on imports—including copper ore, scrap, and derivative products—is crucial to national security and that foreign reliance is undermining U.S. security interests....

Perhaps the biggest market challenge is our loss of attention on a clear demand-side signal...

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed H.R.1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), into law. The sweeping legislation enacts major changes across tax and fiscal policy, social safety-net and healthcare programs, and immigration and border enforcement. Notably, it includes substantial revisions to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), rolling back several programs with lasting implications for the energy sector and critical mineral supply chains. While the bill aims to accelerate domestic sourcing of critical minerals and reduce U.S. dependence on China, it simultaneously eliminates key IRA incentives that have been driving downstream demand—introducing new complexities for making long-term minerals investments and reshaping critical mineral supply chains long dominated by Beijing....

Earlier this year, as hostilities escalated between Rwandan-backed M23 rebels and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), President Félix Tshisekedi proposed granting the United States access to the DRC’s mineral resources in exchange for security support. Following intensive negotiations in Washington and Doha, the foreign ministers of the DRC and Rwanda signed a peace agreement on June 27 in Washington, D.C. The focus now shifts to the next phase: advancing cooperation on critical minerals....