G7 hardens critical-minerals push

Critical minerals are the boring-sounding stuff that modern industry quietly runs on — rare earths for magnets, graphite for batteries, gallium and germanium for chips and telecom gear. The problem is not just that they matter. It’s that a lot of the world’s refining and processing sits in one country, and that turns supply into leverage. This week in Paris, G7 trade ministers tried to harden their answer: closer coordination, less dependence, and a more explicit willingness to treat mineral access as an economic-security issue. (us.diplomatie.gouv.fr) ### What actually happened in Paris? The ministers met on May 5 and 6 under France’s G7 presidency and came out with a communiqué that put critical supply chains near the center of the trade agenda. They tied minerals to a broader package — unfair trade practices, economic coercion, excess capacity, and technology leakage — but the language on minerals was unusually direct. They said they would deep(us.diplomatie.gouv.fr) dependencies. (us.diplomatie.gouv.fr) ### Why are minerals the hard part? Because mining is only half the story. The real choke point is processing, refining, and the industrial ecosystem around it. The IEA’s 2025 outlook shows concentration getting worse, not better — the top three refining countries’ average share rose from about 82% in 2020 to 86% in 2024, with China the top single supplier for cobalt, graphite, and rare earths. So even when ore comes from somewhere else, the bottleneck can still sit in China. (iea.org) ### Why is the G7 talking about coercion now? Because this is no longer a theoretical risk. China has used export controls on several critical materials over the past two years, and in December 2024 it moved to block exports of gallium, germanium, antimony, and some superhard materials to the United States while tightening checks on graphite. That is exactly the scenario the G7 is trying to p(iea.org)hardest to replace. (cset.georgetown.edu) ### What did the ministers actually promise? Not a giant new stockpile or a single headline-grabbing fund. Basically, they promised coordination. The communiqué says they will share evidence, strengthen tools against distortions, work with partners beyond the G7, and stand ready to act against economic coercion. On minerals specifically, they said arbitrary export restrictions can disrupt supply(cset.georgetown.edu)n a finished policy, but frameworks matter when countries are trying to align subsidies, trade defenses, and sourcing rules. (us.diplomatie.gouv.fr) ### Why is France pushing this so hard? France holds the G7 presidency in 2026 and wants a concrete deliverable before the leaders’ summit in Evian on June 15 to 17. French officials have been signaling for months that mineral security would be one of the presidency’s trade priorities. In other words, Paris is trying to turn a vague shared anxiety into something institutional — common language now, then potentially common tools later. (diplomatie.gouv.fr) ### So what’s the catch? The catch is that the coalition is aligned on the threat more than the remedy. Reuters’ reporting from the meeting said officials broadly agreed on reducing reliance on China, but the U.S. and European sides differed on how to do it. And fresh U.S. threats to raise tariffs on EU-made cars to 25% from 15% make that harder. It is tough to build a united supply-chain strategy while fighting over autos. (usnews.com) ### Why does this matter beyond trade nerds? Because minerals now sit underneath defense, energy, autos, and electronics all at once. Demand is still growing fast in the energy system — lithium demand jumped nearly 30% in 2024, while nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earth demand rose 6% to 8%. But investment momentum weakened last year, which (usnews.com)ern to industrial strategy. (iea.org) ### Bottom line? The G7 is treating critical minerals less like a commodity story and more like a power story. Paris did not solve the dependence problem this week. But it did make one thing clearer — the rich democracies now see access to processed minerals as something that has to be defended, coordinated, and, if necessary, fought over in trade policy. (us.diplomatie.gouv.fr)