Operationalizing a Quad Critical Minerals Pact

The Diplomat

6 days ago

As American economic leadership in the Indo-Pacific faces its most difficult litmus test in years, a Quad critical minerals partnership offers the most promising — and practical — first step to restore trust and deliver results.
With just six months into the new administration, the Biden-Trump transition has unleashed a new era of unpredictability in U.S. economic diplomacy, particularly with America's closest Indo-Pacific allies. Yet amid a patchwork of frayed trade ties and ongoing negotiations, there is potential for a more constructive path forward.
The July 1 meeting of Quad foreign ministers from the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India — the second since President Donald Trump's return to office — offered an opening to rebuild trust and deliver tangible economic benefits to all Quad members. The ripest opportunity on the table is a formal Quad partnership on critical minerals. The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, announced in a joint statement following the recent Quad ministerial meeting, is a step in the right direction, albeit lacking in details.
The greatest challenge, however, is not just adding meat to the Critical Minerals Initiative. It is traversing an already complex interplay of national interests along with the added complexity of President Trump's trade policy, and a 'negotiating new terms' of sorts with long-term partner countries.
A Strenuous Moment between Quad Nations and Washington
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged his counterparts from Japan, India, and Australia to elevate the grouping's coordination function toward delivering concrete projects, one of which is diversifying the global supply chain of critical minerals. His message was pointed: securing not just access to raw materials, but the capacity to process and refine them, is a shared strategic imperative for all four nations.
This push comes at a particularly strained moment for U.S. relationships with its closest allies in the Indo-Pacific. The Trump administration's unilateral tariffs have damaged relationships with each Quad partner. Japan faces looming reciprocal tariffs, with trade talks stalled and the president publicly criticizing Japan's 'spoiled' trading practices. Australia is awaiting the results of a Pentagon-led review of AUKUS, the major trilateral security pact between Canberra, Washington, and London. Meanwhile, U.S.-India relations have chilled as Delhi expressed frustration over Washington's outreach to Pakistan when India-Pakistan relations hit their lowest point in recent years due to ongoing military and diplomatic assaults from both sides.
In short, critical minerals aren't the only things in short supply — trust and goodwill between the U.S. and its partners are scarce too.
Why Critical Minerals, Why Now?
Despite tensions, there is one area where the interests of all four nations align: securing access to the critical minerals that underpin everything from the green energy transition to cutting-edge defense systems. China's willingness to weaponize its dominance in the critical minerals supply chain, in particular, and its economic coercion practices, in general, is no breaking news. In 2010, Beijing cut off rare earth exports to Japan after an incident in a disputed territory, setting off an alarm in Tokyo to reduce dependency. Japan's reliance on Chinese rare earths, once over 90 percent, has since fallen below 60 percent, which is a significant improvement but still presents a weak point that China can exploit.
In April 2025, China sharply escalated tensions by imposing stringent export controls on several critical minerals and rare earth elements — including samarium, scandium, and dysprosium — essential to advanced defense systems, electric vehicles, and renewable energy technology. The move, justified by Beijing on national security grounds, effectively throttled global supplies, causing immediate disruptions. The United States faced acute impacts, particularly in defense manufacturing and semiconductors, sectors heavily reliant on Chinese-processed rare earth magnets. India's and Japan's electronics and automobile industries were thrown into crisis, warning of imminent factory shutdowns due to delayed magnet shipments.
Beijing's April clampdown has sent shockwaves across global supply chains and sharply highlighted vulnerabilities among Quad nations. Recognizing the urgency, the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia have increasingly viewed the Quad as the natural platform to build a resilient supply chain, which eventually led to the new joint initiative to develop extraction, processing, and refining capabilities.
Beyond Intent: What a Real Pact Should Look Like
Rubio said that after the ministerial meeting, nearly 40 companies from all four countries also convened to explore areas of cooperation. But industry alone cannot bridge this gap on its own. Congress should act to pass the Quad Critical Minerals Partnership Act sponsored by Sen. Lankford, James (R-OK), which would require the administration to develop a strategy to secure supplies with trusted partners and direct agencies to prioritize investment and collaboration with Quad members.
Each Quad nation brings distinct strengths. Australia offers both raw materials and world-class extraction and processing know-how. Japan's hard-earned experience in public-private investment is a model for the group. India has both the ambition and reserves to emerge as a hub for processing and refining. The U.S. provides capital and market access. Together, the four can add teeth to the Critical Minerals Initiative by developing a joint fund to identify and get projects off the ground.
In addition to the long-term solution of building an alternative supply chain from Beijing, the four nations can also remedy the bottleneck in the short term by coordinating and sharing their stockpiles of rare earths. India's recent move to restrict its exports of rare earths to Japan highlights how Beijing's export controls are damaging economic ties in other bilateral relationships within the Quad. This development not only hinders future collaborations but also worsens the ongoing shortages, warranting an immediate joint effort to pool resources together rather than imposing further restrictions.
Critical minerals security remains a rare issue of bipartisan consensus in Washington. As American economic leadership in the Indo-Pacific faces its most difficult litmus test in years, a Quad critical minerals partnership offers the most promising — and practical — first step to restore trust and deliver results.