Critical Minerals Ministerial Introduces New International Cooperation Strategy

Critical Questions by Gracelin Baskaran and Meredith Schwartz

Published February 13, 2026

On February 4, during the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial at the Department of State, 55 foreign delegations from allied and partner nations convened to deepen cooperation on critical minerals security. The week featured several major announcements, including Project Vault-a domestic stockpile backed by the largest loan in the history of the Export-Import Bank of the United States-the launch of the new multilateral Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE), and the signing of 13 new bilateral critical minerals frameworks and memoranda of understanding. Discussions also focused on price floors and the potential creation of a preferential trading bloc. Together, these developments suggest the Trump administration is complementing its bilateral engagements with a more plurilateral strategy, recognizing that meaningful market influence requires collective scale among major consuming and producing countries.

Q1: What is FORGE?

A1: FORGE, or the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement, a new international forum established to succeed the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP). The forum will be chaired by the Republic of Korea until June 2026, and the United States aims to drive the forum's project-level and policy action. All 17 members of the MSP reportedly agreed to the broader FORGE mandate to collaborate at both the policy and project levels to advance diversified, resilient, and secure critical minerals supply chains.

FORGE is a plurilateral effort; it focuses on policy alignment and cross-border project coordination. Strengthening diplomatic coordination is essential to building globally integrated supply chains in which minerals are potentially mined in one country, processed in another, manufactured into components in a third, and ultimately consumed in a fourth. Effective coordination aligns standards, regulatory frameworks, export controls, investment screening, financing tools, and environmental and labor expectations across jurisdictions. It also enables governments to strategically sequence investments by pairing upstream development in resource-rich economies with midstream processing hubs and downstream manufacturing centers. This enables supply chains to function as coherent systems rather than fragmented national efforts.

Q2: What was the discussion around price floors and price support mechanisms during the Critical Minerals Ministerial?

A2: Addressing price volatility emerged as a central theme of the Critical Minerals Ministerial. Vice President JD Vance underscored this point, stating, "Consistent investment is nearly impossible, and it will stay that way so long as prices are erratic and unpredictable." Restoring price stability was repeatedly framed as essential to unlocking sustained private sector investment.

Price support mechanisms also featured prominently in several bilateral minerals agreements. The U.S.-Argentina framework agreement describes a joint goal of establishing high-standard markets with benchmark pricing frameworks designed to guard against non-market policies and unfair trade practices. Similarly, the U.S.-UK agreement emphasizes cooperation to secure both countries' critical minerals and rare earth industries from non-market distortions. This includes developing high-standard marketplaces and working together with international partners toward a coordinated global approach to address international pricing challenges.

Vice President Vance also outlined a plurilateral approach to enhancing price stability through the creation of a preferential trade zone for critical minerals with enforceable price floors. The proposed bloc would establish reference prices for critical minerals at each stage of production, set based on fair market value. Irrespective of how much material enters the global market from Chinese production, the prices within the preferential trade zone would remain constant. For member countries, these benchmarks would operate as binding price floors, reinforced through adjustable tariffs to prevent undercutting and preserve pricing integrity across the supply chain.

The price floor approach articulated during the ministerial signaled a shift away from asset-specific arrangements, such as the floor provided to MP Materials, toward a broader, market-based framework.

Importantly, while the ministerial served as a clear vehicle for articulating the administration's strategic direction, it marked only the beginning of the process. Key implementation details, including design, enforcement mechanisms, scope, and timelines, remain to be determined and will require further interagency coordination and international consultation.

Q3: Why do we need price floors for critical minerals?

A3: Volatile critical mineral prices-vulnerable to market manipulation by just a few dominant actors-have long impacted the economic viability of U.S. and Western mining and processing projects. In response to sustained price weakness, Glencore and BHP have closed nickel operations in New Caledonia and Australia; Jervois suspended its cobalt mine in the United States; and just this week, U.S.-headquartered Albemarle announced the shutdown of its Kemerton lithium hydroxide processing facility in Western Australia due to persistently low prices.

The impact of price volatility extends beyond the mine. Treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs)-the fees paid to smelters and refiners to process concentrate-have been extremely low and, in some cases, negative in recent years. TC/RCs are meant to be a core revenue stream for processing facilities. When they turn negative, it means smelters are effectively paying to process concentrate rather than being paid to do so. Over the past two years, TC/RCs have become negative for a range of commodities, putting additional pressure on the economics of refining. For example, the average annual TC/RCs for zinc reached a 50-year low in 2025, while copper is also experiencing a prolonged period of negative TC/RCs.

Price floors are necessary to keep existing projects online and provide a layer of protection for new investments. Vice President Vance noted that "A lithium mine, a gallium recovery center-you name it-is announced, sometimes with years in planning and financing nearly in place. Then overnight, foreign supply floods the market, the prices collapse, and investors pull out."

Q4: What distinguishes the U.S.-Mexico bilateral agreement from other recent critical minerals partnerships?

A4: Unlike other diplomatic agreements led by the State Department, the U.S.-Mexico arrangement was structured as a Critical Minerals Action Plan signed by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Mexican Secretary of Economy Marcelo Ebrard, underscoring its distinctly trade-centered orientation.

The agreement signaled a clear preference for bilateral cooperation, rather than tripartite coordination under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) framework. Ambassador Greer underscored this point, stating: "As we approach the USMCA Joint Review, this Action Plan is an important step to strengthen bilateral cooperation and increase supply chain resilience with like-minded partners." Notably, no parallel agreement was signed with Canada. This development follows rising tensions after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney moved to permit imports of BYD vehicles into Canada at a reduced tariff rate.

The action plan proposes establishing a new framework for preferential trade in critical minerals, including coordinated trade policies and tools such as border-adjusted price floors for select minerals. Over time, these price floors could be incorporated into a broader plurilateral agreement designed to strengthen supply chain resilience among participating countries.

Such an agreement could extend beyond pricing mechanisms to include trade measures that support a resilient marketplace, regulatory standards for mining and processing, technical and regulatory cooperation, investment promotion and screening, and related measures. Implementation details will be developed over a 60-day period through coordination between the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Mexico's Secretariat of Economy.

Zinc and copper are particularly promising areas for deeper U.S.-Mexico cooperation. Mexico holds the world's fifth-largest zinc reserves, positioning it as a significant potential supplier of both zinc and germanium, which is a byproduct of zinc refining. This could make Mexico an important source of feedstock for the new $7.4 billion Korea Zinc refinery in Tennessee, in which the Pentagon will hold a 40 percent equity stake. Mexico is also home to the sixth-largest copper reserves in the world, and its Cananea (Buenavista del Cobre) mine in Sonora is one of the largest globally.

Q5: How would tariff-driven price floors operate, who ultimately bears the cost, and do they address the structural challenges facing the sector?

A5: In his Section 232 announcement in January 2026, President Trump noted that the administration may consider minimum import prices for specific types of critical minerals. This prevents the dumping of overproduced and underpriced minerals that skew the market and disincentivize Western-led investments. There are two implications to take into consideration.

First, while tariffs used for price support may improve the relative competitiveness of U.S. and allied producers vis-à-vis Chinese competitors, they do not resolve the underlying balance sheet challenges facing many projects. Operating costs, including labor, energy, transportation, and chemical reagents, vary significantly depending on location and ownership structure. Tariffs cannot offset these structural cost differentials. In some cases, other tariff measures may even raise input costs for domestic producers that rely on imported equipment or processing chemicals. To be effective, tariff policies aimed at supporting commodity prices must be paired with measures that lower production costs and strengthen project economics.

Second, minimum import prices would also raise input costs for downstream manufacturers. Because critical minerals are embedded in a wide range of products, including cars, household appliances, and consumer technologies, higher raw material costs can flow through supply chains and increase the price of finished goods. The inflationary effect may be modest on an individual product basis, but across large sectors of the economy, cumulative cost pass-through could be meaningful for households. Policymakers will therefore need to balance the goals of supply chain resilience with the potential for higher consumer prices, particularly in already cost-sensitive sectors.

Q6: Does FORGE indicate a shift from bilateralism to plurilateralism in the Trump administration's foreign policy strategy?

A6: For much of last year, the Trump administration engaged with international partners to solve critical mineral supply chain issues on a bilateral basis. The bilateral frameworks, partnerships, and memoranda of understanding with Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Ukraine were specialized agreements according to partners' varied strengths, capabilities, and resources. For example, Australia has deep mining expertise and capacity for rare earths, lithium, and gallium, with a well-established network of Western operators, while Saudi Arabia has a centralized geographic location, significant heavy rare earth deposits, and cheap energy for large-scale processing. These bilateral agreements are useful for quickly deploying co-investment capital to strategic projects, such as Alcoa's gallium refinery in Australia or MP Materials and Maaden's rare earth separating facility in Saudi Arabia, but they are less effective in combatting the underlying problems in global minerals markets.

The Critical Minerals Ministerial emphasized the need for a larger bloc of countries to join forces and counter the status quo in mineral markets, as reflected in the announcements of both FORGE and Pax Silica, another plurilateral forum for addressing supply chain security issues for artificial intelligence. While the Trump administration is hardly abandoning its push for bilateral agreements to jointly finance projects, there are larger market problems, including volatile pricing, uncertain offtake, and sluggish demand, that are better addressed in a plurilateral format.

Any U.S. effort to establish price floors for vulnerable minerals will be far more effective if pursued in coordination with allies. The United States represents a small share of global consumption for many strategic commodities-3.6 percent of cobalt, 5.1 percent of nickel, and 1.7 percent of rare earth elements-limiting the impact of unilateral action. Achieving meaningful scale and demand signals that can sustain projects therefore depends on coordinated engagement among major consuming as well as producing partners. Aligning price support mechanisms across FORGE partners would magnify market influence, reduce individual risk, and strengthen collective resilience against destabilizing pricing practices.

Q7: How might China respond to these developments?

A7: One of the key challenges the United States and its allies will face is the risk of swift retaliation from China in response to efforts to build plurilateral cooperation aimed at reducing dependence on Chinese supply. Beijing maintains substantial leverage across multiple segments of the critical minerals value chain and has previously used export controls as a geopolitical instrument.

At any point, China could reimpose restrictions on rare earth elements and permanent magnets, which would have immediate and far-reaching consequences for global manufacturing. Such action could disrupt downstream industries, spike prices, and test the resilience of newly emerging supply chains before they are fully mature.

Gracelin Baskaran is director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Meredith Schwartz is an associate fellow for the Critical Minerals Security Program at CSIS.

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