{"id":561215,"date":"2026-03-24T13:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561215\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T13:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:52:08","slug":"australia-and-eu-seal-trade-deal-to-cut-reliance-on-chinas-rare-earths-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561215\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia and EU seal trade deal to cut reliance on China\u2019s rare earths | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">EU\u2019s Von der Leyen says critical minerals partnership is \u2018crucial\u2019 as China dominates supply chains.<\/p>\n<p>Published On 24 Mar 202624 Mar 2026<\/p>\n<p>Australia and the European Union have signed a trade deal removing tariffs for nearly all exports of Australian critical minerals, amid concerns over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/economy\/2025\/10\/21\/despite-us-push-china-poised-to-dominate-rare-earths-for-years\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">China\u2019s dominant position<\/a> in the supply of rare earths.<\/p>\n<p>European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday said the deal, which was eight years in the making, meant the EU and Australia were \u201cmoving even closer together\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe \u2060cannot be over-dependent on any supplier for such crucial ingredients, and that is precisely why we need each other,\u201d von der Leyen told Australia\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor both Europe and Australia, getting China right is a strategic imperative, and this is why bringing to life our critical minerals partnership will be crucial to our success.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/10\/10\/china-tightens-export-controls-on-rare-earth-metals-why-this-matters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">China dominates global critical mineral supply chains<\/a>, controlling roughly 90 percent of processing for rare earths, which are essential for the production of technological equipment such as electric cars, lithium-ion batteries, LED televisions and camera lenses.<\/p>\n<p>Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the removal of almost all import tariffs on Australian critical minerals into the EU would help stabilise global supply chains.<\/p>\n<p>The agreement will also remove more than 99 percent of tariffs on EU goods exports to Australia, cutting 1 billion euros ($1.2bn) a year in duties for companies. EU exports to Australia are now expected to grow by up to 33 percent over the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>Albanese told a news conference that the agreement would be worth about 10 billion Australian dollars ($7bn) annually to the Australian economy.<\/p>\n<p>Trade between the two sides is substantial, with EU firms exporting 37 billion euros\u2019 ($43bn) worth \u200cof \u200cgoods to Australia in 2025 and 28 billion euros ($33bn) of services in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>As a bloc, the EU was Australia\u2019s third-largest two-way trading partner in 2024 as well as the sixth-largest export destination, official data showed. The bloc was Australia\u2019s second-largest source of foreign investment in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU\u2019s Von der Leyen says critical minerals partnership is \u2018crucial\u2019 as China dominates supply chains. Published On 24&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77,64,63,512,2057,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-561215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}