\u201cThis is a really significant deal<\/a>, and I\u2019m surprised how good it is,\u201d says Hayley Channer, the director of the economic security program at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that any US money is coming to Australian companies is huge; we really need this money. I don\u2019t think it could have gone any better.\u201d<\/p>\n The co-investment in projects in Western Australia and the Northern Territory puts Australia at the heart of America\u2019s effort to reduce its overreliance on Chinese critical minerals \u2013 a vulnerability that China<\/a> has been ruthlessly exploiting amid the trade conflict between the two great world powers.<\/p>\n Albanese and Trump have committed to each provide A$1.5bn in the next six months as part of a longer-term A$13bn pipeline of projects in both countries.<\/p>\n China\u2019s chokehold is shown in the stats: the communist country accounts for roughly 70% of rare-earth mining globally, 90% of processing and 93% of magnet manufacturing.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n What it doesn\u2019t mine at home, China ships from projects it owns across Africa, Asia and Australia \u2013 using its own transport infrastructure \u2013 before refining the elements at home.<\/p>\n China, over the years, has used its productive might to flood the global rare earths market, sending prices crashing and competitors out of business.<\/p>\n \u201cEssentially, that\u2019s what China has done with multiple mineral companies,\u201d Channer says. \u201cIt floods the market with really cheap products, and then other companies\u2019 share prices drop, and then they go out of business. So the companies couldn\u2019t survive on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n This is part of the reason why government intervention has become necessary, and likely will be for the foreseeable future to remain viable.<\/p>\n The rare earths industry also faces a more fundamental challenge: advanced manufacturers cannot make their products without rare-earth elements, often many of them. But they only need a very small amount of each \u2013 which makes it hard for miners to achieve economies of scale.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason why this industry is not like the oil industry, for instance, comes back to the fact that you don\u2019t need much of the minerals \u2013 only tiny percentages go into anything,\u201d Channer says.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if you don\u2019t have minerals, whatever product you\u2019re making doesn\u2019t work. So basically, it\u2019s not commercially viable on its own, but we need them for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the yeast and the pizza,\u201d he says. \u201cYou only need a tiny bit of it. But if you don\u2019t have yeast, you\u2019ve got no pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n Richard Holden, an economics professor at the University of New South Wales, is about as hard-headed as it comes. But he also agrees that the value of this week\u2019s deal goes beyond the narrow criterion of whether the dollar benefits outweigh the costs \u2013 which they do not.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s worth it,\u201d Holden says. \u201cWe are in a different world now to the pre-Trump and Xi world. We are in a world where countries are acting like countries, rather than commercial enterprises that happen to operate in those countries.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words: \u201cPower matters and bargaining chips matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Holden says critical minerals are one of very few bargaining chips Australia has when it comes to the US.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something that matters to President Trump, so it should matter to us. So the standard cost-benefit test \u2013 that\u2019s out the window.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to ask: \u2018Does it pass the bargaining chip test?\u2019, and this does,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd then the harder question is: \u2018How much money is OK to blow on it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Key](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3486.jpg\")
Key moments from Albanese and Trump’s White House meeting \u2013 video<\/p>\n![\"Rare](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1920.png\")
Rare earths: how these critical minerals impact Australian industry and global politics \u2013 video<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Albanese has struck a multibillion-dollar deal with Donald Trump to develop critical minerals projects in Australia that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-89828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}