US President Donald Trump signed an agreement with Australia on cooperation in the field of critical minerals and rare earths.
Trump received Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House.
Donald Trump said that they discussed the issue of critical minerals and rare earths with Australia elements and, as a result of negotiations that lasted 4-5 months, came to an agreement.
The President emphasized that they are working closely with Australia on many other issues: “In about a year, we will have so many critical minerals and rare earth elements that you will not know what to do with them.”
Prime Minister of Australia Albanese, in turn noted that they will continue to take every opportunity to strengthen good relations between the two countries, and emphasized the importance of today’s agreement on critical minerals and rare earth elements in taking relations to the next level.
Albanese said the agreement represents a ready-to-implement program worth $8.5 billion.
Following the negotiations, the leaders of the two countries signed an agreement on critical minerals and rare earth elements.
A model for global supply chain cooperation
The White House statement on the issue noted that the agreement, concluded to unlock the potential of natural resources, is a model for global supply chain cooperation.
Over the next six months the two countries plan to jointly invest more than $3 billion in projects to extract critical minerals, with the value of recoverable resources in these projects estimated at $53 billion.
The report also said the US Department of Defense will invest in building a state-of-the-art 100 metric ton per year gallium processing plant in Western Australia, which will further increase the country’s self-sufficiency in the processing of critical minerals.