President Donald Trump and Australian leftist/globalist Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a rare earths and critical minerals agreement on Monday aimed at ensuring a steady supply of materials as China seeks to tighten control over global supply.
China loomed large at the first White House summit between Trump and Albanese, with the US President backing a strategic nuclear-powered submarine deal with Australia aimed at countering Beijing's ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
The two leaders opened their talks in the Cabinet Room by announcing they would sign a rare earths deal that Trump said had been negotiated in recent months. Albanese described it as an $8.5 billion pipeline, “that we have ready to go.”
A copy of the agreement, provided by the Prime Minister’s Office, said the two countries would each invest $1 billion over the next six months into mining and processing projects, as well as set a minimum price floor for critical minerals — a move that Western miners have long sought.
“In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them,” Trump told reporters.
The United States has been seeking access to rare earths and critical minerals worldwide as China takes steps to strengthen its control over global supply. Trade tensions between the United States and China have escalated ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea next week.
China holds the world’s largest rare earths reserves, according to US Geological Survey data, while Australia also has significant deposits. The materials are used in products ranging from electric vehicles to aircraft engines and military radars.
While Trump and Albanese greeted each other warmly, there was an awkward moment when Trump was asked by reporters about past comments critical of him made by Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, which Rudd has since deleted.
Trump said he was not aware of the comments and asked where the envoy was. Upon seeing him across the table, Trump said, “I don’t like you either — and I probably never will.”
Albanese received welcome support from Trump for the AU$368 billion ($239.46 billion) AUKUS agreement reached in 2023 under then-President Joe Biden. Under the deal, Australia is to buy US nuclear-powered submarines in 2032 before building a new submarine class with Britain.
While Trump has been eager to roll back Biden-era policies, he signalled his intent to back the AUKUS submarine agreement, months after his team launched a review of the deal over concerns about the United States’ ability to meet its own submarine needs.
US Navy Secretary John Phelan told the meeting that the United States and Australia were working closely to improve the original AUKUS framework for all three parties, “and clarify some of the ambiguity that was in the prior agreement.”
Trump said these were “just minor details,” adding, “There shouldn’t be any more clarifications, because we’re just going now full steam ahead, building.”
Ahead of Monday’s meeting, Australian officials emphasised that Canberra is paying its way under AUKUS, contributing AU$2 billion this year to boost production rates at US submarine shipyards, and preparing to maintain US Virginia-class submarines at its Indian Ocean naval base from 2027.
The ten-month delay in an official meeting since Trump took office had caused some anxiety in Australia as the Pentagon urged Canberra to increase defence spending. The two leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month.
The rare earths agreement came a week after US officials condemned Beijing’s expansion of rare earth export controls as a threat to global supply chains.
Resource-rich Australia, seeking to extract and process rare earths, offered preferential access to its strategic reserves during US trade negotiations in April.
As part of the rare earths agreement, Trump and Albanese agreed to cut permitting times for mines, processing facilities, and related operations in order to boost production.
The deal called for cooperation on mapping geological resources, minerals recycling, and efforts to stop the sale of critical minerals assets “on national security grounds.”
This was an oblique reference to China, which has bought major mining assets worldwide over the past decade, including the world’s largest cobalt mine in Congo, from US-based Freeport-McMoRan.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney and Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland, and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Additional reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Colleen Jenkins, and Nick Zieminski)