Australia Pitches to Be Trump’s Fix for China Rare Earths Curbs

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(Bloomberg) — Australia’s prime minister is set to pitch his nation’s vast resource holdings as a solution to China’s rare earth curbs at a meeting Monday with President Donald Trump, as the US and other countries scramble to diversify supply of critical minerals.

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Anthony Albanese is due to meet with Trump at around 11 a.m. in Washington and will aim to use the sit down to secure an agreement with the US on critical minerals. He is also expected to seek assurances on the administration’s commitment to the Aukus pact under which the US is due to help supply Australia with nuclear submarines.

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China’s move to impose unprecedented export restrictions on the rare-earth supply chain dominated discussions last week among global finance chiefs in Washington. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested a united front is forming, saying US officials are in talks with “European allies, with Australia, with Canada, with India and the Asian democracies” about a response.

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Albanese follows a string of counterparts in traveling to Washington to try to shore up ties with the US while avoiding a blowup with the mercurial president. While Australians remain pro-US alliance, they are also anti-Trump and worried about the outlook for American democracy, a survey released last week showed. As a result, Albanese needs to strike a delicate diplomatic balance.

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Ahead of Monday’s meeting, Ambassador to Washington Kevin Rudd highlighted Australia’s capacity to offer solutions to the critical minerals threat to western economies in a sales pitch to the Trump administration.

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“Australia equals the periodic table,” he said in a speech in Washington last week. “Having it is one thing — knowing how to mine it, as mining is a high tech business, is another — and we have the world’s biggest and best miners.”

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Rudd pointed out that the US has a deficiency in the 50 designated critical minerals and rare earths and that with investment from both sides, Australia “can meet 30 to 40 of those without much additional effort, most particularly in terms of processed rare earths.”

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For some time, market participants have been optimistic that Canberra and Washington would seriously discuss Australia’s ability to deliver secure shipments of rare earths and help the US develop its own capacity. Investors have been betting on companies that will benefit from US support, with miners like Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. trading up more than 150% over the past 12 months. 

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In meetings in Washington last month, representatives of more than a dozen Australian mining firms were told by officials from various US agencies that the administration is assessing mechanisms to take equity-like stakes in companies, people familiar with the talks said. Earlier this month, miners said they’d been invited to Washington to brief Rudd about their projects.

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If the US were to take stakes, it wouldn’t be the first time a foreign government has invested directly into an Australian resources project. Japan injected funds into Lynas in 2011 after China blocked supplies of rare earths over a territorial dispute, and added to that investment in 2023 to secure a supply of heavy rare earths to make magnets, the exact elements China is curbing.