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WASHINGTON — <\/span>The Trump administration is expected to unveil its grandest plan yet to rebuild supply chains of critical minerals<\/a> needed for everything from jet engines to smartphones, likely through purchase agreements with partners on top of creating a $12 billion U.S. strategic reserve<\/a> to help counter China’s dominance<\/a>.<\/p>\n Vice President JD Vance is set to deliver a keynote address Wednesday at a meeting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting with officials from several dozen European, Asian and African nations. The U.S. is expected to sign deals on supply chain logistics, though details have not yet been revealed. Rubio met Tuesday with foreign ministers from South Korea and India to discuss critical minerals mining and processing.<\/p>\n The meeting and expected agreements will come just two days after President Donald Trump<\/a> announced \u201cProject Vault,\u201d or a stockpile of critical minerals to be funded with a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export and Import Bank and nearly $1.67 billion in private capital. <\/p>\n The Trump administration is making such bold moves after China, which controls 70% of the world\u2019s rare earths mining and 90% of the processing, choked off the flow of the elements in response to Trump\u2019s tariff war<\/a>. The two superpowers are in a one-year truce after Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in October<\/a> and agreed to pull back on high tariffs<\/a> and stepped up rare earth restrictions.<\/p>\n But China\u2019s limits remain tighter than they were before Trump took office.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to ever go through what we went through a year ago,\u201d Trump said on Monday when announcing Project Vault. <\/p>\n Other countries might join with the Trump administration in buying up critical minerals and taking other steps to spur industry development because the trade war revealed how vulnerable Western counties are to China, said Pini Althaus, who founded Oklahoma rare earth miner USA Rare Earth<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re looking at setting up sort of a buyers\u2019 club, if you will,\u201d said Althaus, who now is working to develop new mines in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as CEO of Cove Capital. \u201cThe key producers and key consumers of critical minerals will sort of get together and work on pricing structures, floor pricing and other things.\u201d<\/p>\n The government last week also made its fourth direct investment in an American critical minerals producer when it extended $1.6 billion to USA Rare Earth in exchange for stock and a repayment agreement. <\/p>\n Seeking government funding these days is like meeting with private equity investors because officials are scrutinizing companies to ensure anyone they invest in can deliver, Althaus said. And the government is demanding terms designed to generate a return for taxpayers as loans are repaid and stock prices increase, he said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s board this week approved the $10 billion loan \u2014 the largest in its history \u2014 to help finance the setup of the U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve. It is tasked with ensuring access to critical minerals and related products for manufacturers, including battery maker Clarios, energy equipment manufacturer GE Vernova, digital storage company Western Digital and aerospace giant Boeing, according to the policy bank.<\/p>\n Bank President and Chairman John Jovanovic told CNBC that the project creates a public-private partnership formula that \u201cis uniquely suited and puts America’s best foot forward.\u201d<\/p>\n “What it does is it creates a scenario where there are no free riders. Everybody pitches in to solve this huge problem,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Manufacturers, which benefit the most from the reserve, are making a long-term financial commitment, Jovanovic said, while the government loan spurs private investments.<\/p>\n The stockpile strategy may help spark a \u201cmore organic\u201d pricing model that excludes China, which has used its dominance to flood the market with lower-priced products to squeeze out competitors, said Wade Senti, president of the U.S. permanent magnet company AML.<\/p>\n The Trump administration also has injected public money directly into the sector. The Pentagon has shelled out<\/a> nearly $5 billion over the past year to help ensure its access to the materials after the trade war laid bare just how beholden the U.S. is to China.<\/p>\n A bipartisan group of lawmakers last month proposed creating a new agency with $2.5 billion to spur production of rare earths and the other critical minerals<\/a>. The lawmakers applauded the steps by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a clear sign that there is bipartisan support for securing a robust domestic supply of critical minerals that both reduces our reliance on China and stabilizes the market,\u201d Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Todd Young, R-Ind., said in a joint statement Tuesday.<\/p>\n Building up a stockpile will help American companies weather future rare earth supply disruptions, but that will likely be a long-term effort because the materials are still scarce right now with China’s restrictions, said David Abraham, a rare earths expert who has followed the industry for decades and wrote the book \u201cThe Elements of Power.\u201d <\/p>\n The Trump administration has focused on reinvigorating critical minerals production, but Abraham said it’s also important to encourage development of manufacturing that will use them. He noted that Trump\u2019s decisions to cut incentives for electric vehicles<\/a> and wind turbines have undercut demand for these elements in America.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n