By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) – About 30 countries want to join a club of allies and partners on trading critical minerals to reduce reliance on China, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told a conference on Tuesday.
Burgum, who also heads the U.S. National Energy Dominance Council, said countries including Japan, Australia and South Korea have joined the club. “We have plans to announce as many as 11 more of those agreements this week,” Burgum said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies conference.
In addition, up to 20 more countries have “strong interest” in joining the club, which would have tariff-free trade and exchanges and a price floor for minerals, Burgum said.
“Typically the United States, we’re free market folks, we don’t like messing with markets. But if you have someone who is dominant, who can flood the market with particular material, they have the ability to essentially destroy the economic value of a company or a country’s production,” Burgum said.
Washington has been moving to offset what policymakers view as Chinese manipulation of prices for lithium, nickel, rare earths and other critical minerals vital to making electric vehicles, high-tech weaponry and electronics.
President Donald Trump on Monday launched a strategic minerals stockpile known as Project Vault backed by a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and nearly $2 billion in private capital that private companies could tap. The U.S. Defense Department has its own stockpile.
Burgum said the price floors supported by the minerals club would attract long-term capital. “The private sector can get involved and make investments in mining and refining, knowing there’s going to be a market and they don’t have to worry about the bottom falling out,” Burgum said.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner)
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