US Launches Strategy to Control Critical Minerals Markets Through Price Floors and Trade Partnerships

The Trump Administration is taking decisive action to reshape global markets for critical minerals, announcing a new preferential trade zone with built-in price protections at its first Critical Minerals Ministerial in early February. The initiative brings together officials from over 50 countries in Washington, DC, marking a coordinated international effort to counter what US policymakers view as China’s stranglehold on essential mineral supply chains.

Central to the announcement is a mechanism establishing reference prices for critical minerals at each production stage. These floor prices, maintained through adjustable tariffs, are designed to prevent foreign producers from flooding markets with cheap supplies that undercut American manufacturers. According to Vice President JD Vance, the goal is straightforward: create market conditions that reward fair competition while protecting domestic producers from predatory pricing strategies that would ultimately lead to monopolistic control by foreign suppliers.

The Critical Minerals Preferential Trade Zone: How Price Controls Will Work

The preferential trade zone represents a departure from laissez-faire approaches to mineral markets. Under this framework, participating nations agree to reference pricing that reflects genuine market value. For members, these prices function as a floor, protected by tariffs that adjust to maintain pricing integrity. The administration specifically aims to eliminate the “flooding” strategy, where cheap foreign minerals undermine domestic producers until they exit the market, after which prices spike artificially.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that this isn’t merely about economics—it’s about national sovereignty. The US positioned rare earth magnets and other derivative products as strategic assets, noting that American economic security has been compromised by outsourcing mining operations decades ago. The decision to allow facilities like Mountain Pass in California, once home to one of the world’s richest mineral deposits, to decline in favor of manufacturing and eventually design operations created a dangerous dependency.

From Economic Dependency to Supply Chain Resilience

The historical arc Rubio traced reveals how American industrial priorities shifted. In 1949, miners in Mountain Pass discovered extraordinary mineral deposits; by 1952, the US was pioneering rare earth mining and spurring technological revolutions in aerospace and computing. But as newer technologies became more glamorous than the raw materials enabling them, mining—deemed less fashionable—was systematically outsourced.

This pattern repeated: manufacturing followed mining offshore, and finally, design work moved abroad too. The result is a critical minerals dependency that US officials now view as a strategic vulnerability. Japan’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs Horii Iwao reinforced this perspective, emphasizing that supply chain diversification—not concentration under single suppliers—is the foundation of resilience.

Building a Global Alliance for Critical Minerals Security

The ministerial revealed that price controls are just one pillar of a broader strategy. The administration’s four-point approach includes direct investment in mining infrastructure, stockpiling critical minerals through Project Vault (a $12 billion initiative announced days before the ministerial), protecting mining companies through policy support, and rebuilding mining ecosystems in partner nations.

David Copley, Special Assistant to the President for Global Supply Chains, signaled a shift in approach: rather than producing lengthy policy analyses, the administration intends to execute concrete deals, expedite permits for mining companies, and coordinate with international partners to establish fair and balanced global mining practices. The emphasis on “project execution” underscores that critical minerals policy is now treated as urgent national and economic security infrastructure.

The gathering demonstrated that securing supplies of critical minerals has moved to the forefront of international economic strategy, with the US working to rebuild domestic production capacity while ensuring allies have access to diversified, fairly-priced sources.