Quad countries agree to diversify critical mineral supplies amid China concerns
The four countries said in a joint statement that they were establishing the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, aimed at 'collaborating on securing and diversifying' supply chains.
They offered little detail but made clear the goal was to reduce reliance on China, which has used restrictions as leverage as the US in turn curbs its access to semiconductors and threatens steep tariffs.
China holds major reserves of several key minerals including the vast majority of the world's graphite, which is crucial for electric vehicles.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio welcomed his counterparts from the so-called 'Quad' grouping to Washington on Tuesday in a shift of focus to Asia, after spending much of his first six months on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and on president Donald Trump's domestic priorities, such as migration.
In brief remarks alongside the other ministers, Rubio said he has 'personally been very focused' on diversifying supply chains and wanted 'real progress'.
In a joint statement, the Quad countries said: 'Reliance on any one country for processing and refining critical minerals and derivative goods production exposes our industries to economic coercion, price manipulation and supply chain disruptions.'
The ministers were careful not to mention China by name but also voiced 'serious concerns regarding dangerous and provocative actions' in the South China Sea and East China Sea that 'threaten peace and stability in the region'.
Rubio had welcomed the Quad foreign ministers on 21 January in his first meeting after Trump's inauguration, seen as a sign the new administration would prioritise engagement with like-minded countries to counter China.
But to the surprise of many, China has not topped the early agenda of Trump, who has spoken respectfully about his counterpart, Xi Jinping, and moved to ease tensions in a wider trade war between the world's two largest economies.
Trump is expected to travel to India later this year for a Quad summit.
Both the Indian and Japanese foreign ministers said they wanted the Quad to focus on a 'free and open Indo-Pacific' – a phrasing that is a veiled allusion to opposing Chinese dominance in Asia.
'It is essential that nations of the Indo-Pacific have the freedom of choice, so essential to make right decisions on development and security,' Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said.
At Jaishankar's urging, the Quad also condemned a May attack on the Indian side of Kashmir that killed mostly Hindu civilians and called for 'the perpetrators, organisers and financiers of this reprehensible act to be brought to justice without any delay'.
In a key concern for Japan, the Quad condemned North Korea for its 'destabilising launches' of missiles and insisted on its 'complete denuclearisation'.
Despite common ground on China, Quad members have differed on other hotspots, with the joint statement not mentioning Ukraine or Iran.
India has maintained its long relationship with Russia despite the invasion of Ukraine, while both India and Japan also have historically enjoyed cordial ties with Iran.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
41 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trump tries to sell rice to the Japanese
Japan's attempt to strike a deal with the US before Donald Trump's deadline next week has hit an unlikely sticking point: rice. As part of the negotiations, Mr Trump has revealed he wants Tokyo to buy more American rice. 'Japan, they won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,' the president posted on Truth Social this week. In a later briefing to journalists on Air Force One, he branded the Japanese as 'spoilt' for eschewing American rice, even though 'they need rice so badly'. The issue has become a major sticking point, jeopardising the prospect of a US-Japan deal ahead of Mr Trump's self-imposed deadline to strike a deal by next week. 'I'm not sure if we're going going to make a deal, I doubt it, with Japan,' Mr Trump said. 'What I'm going to do is, I'll write them a letter saying, 'We thank you very much and we know you can't do the kind of things that we need. And therefore you'll pay 30pc, 35pc', or whatever the number is that we determined.' America and Japan, which is the world's fifth-largest economy, share around £140bn of two-way trade. Japan is one of the world's top 10 consumers of rice, but the country has faced a domestic crisis after the cost of the crop surged over the past year. 'I have repeatedly stated that agriculture is the foundation of the nation,' Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's economy minister, told a press conference this week. 'In negotiations with the United States, our stance remains unchanged. We will not engage in talks that would sacrifice the agricultural sector.' As Japan's lead negotiator, Mr Akazawa is tipped to make another flying visit to Washington this weekend – his eighth – as the two sides try to emulate Britain, China and Vietnam in striking an agreement with Mr Trump's administration. India, South Korea, the European Union and several south-east Asian countries are also trying to get a deal over the line before the 90-day pause on US tariffs ends on July 9. Rice prices have jumped fourfold in the past year. Heatwaves have hit the harvest, a tourist boom has fuelled demand from restaurants, and there have been bouts of typhoon or earthquake-related panic buying. Since March, the Japanese government has released 300,000 tonnes of rice from its stockpile. But supply chain bottlenecks have prevented buyers from feeling the full benefit. The issue has caused anger, which has put politicians under pressure ahead of an upper house election this month. In May, Taku Eto was forced to resign as farm minister over the issue, after admitting he never buys rice because his supporters give it to him for free. Japan has steep barriers to imported rice. Only the first 100,000 tonnes of imported 'staple rice' – the most popular variety for Japanese consumers – can enter Japan tariff-free. After that, the rice attracts a levy of 341 yen (£1.73) per kilogram. Another 670,000 tonnes is allowed for use in processed foods or animal feed, a tiny fraction of Japan's annual domestic harvest, which is typically almost 7m tonnes. Half of its tariff-free imports already come from the US. At a government tender for tariff-free shipments held last week, US producers grabbed more than 80pc of the available quota. 'Rice imports from abroad, including from the US, have increased 120 times from a year earlier,' Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan's agriculture minister, said this week. The rice negotiations could stall because Americans produce long-grain rice, and the Japanese prefer short-grain. Aeon, a major Japanese retailer, is trying to woo the Japanese with California-grown rice, and some Japanese restaurants are blending domestic and imported rice.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Trump has dropped a big, beautiful bomb on America's economy
China's leaders must be wondering whether they are hallucinating or whether America's political class really has lost its mind, committing economic and geopolitical self-harm on a breathtaking scale. Donald Trump's ' big beautiful bill ' marks a wholesale retreat from swaths of advanced manufacturing and energy technology. It abandons a central front of the Sino-American superpower contest without a fight. 'Utterly insane and destructive. The bill will cause immense strategic harm to our country,' said Elon Musk, now the arch-apostate, perhaps soon to be punished, asset-stripped and deported. The big bill is the latest in a series of Luddite measures that let China run away with the electro-tech revolution and much of the future global market for cars, trucks, short-haul aviation, home heating and cooling, smart grids, power storage and the products that deliver the cheapest energy ever known to man. The think tank Ember says China is electrifying its economy at a rate of 10 percentage points a decade. It has already surpassed 30pc of final energy, well on its way to becoming the world's first electro-superpower. America has been stuck in the low 20s since 2008, lulled into complacency by its fracking boom. Europe has missed the boat too, without the same excuse. It talks big on electrons without delivering much, while clinging to imported molecules for its economic existence, failing to compete successfully on either. The woke and the anti-woke are still arguing about renewables but we are past that developmental phase. The big trillions are going to be made in the ways we use electricity. The International Energy Agency thinks the vast electro-tech market will be eight times larger than renewables by 2035. Trump's America is betting that it can freeze time and stop this, doubling down on fossils and hoping to force others to go with them as a condition for military protection and market access. Trump is linking trade deals with Japan, South Korea and Europe to increased imports of US liquefied natural gas (LNG). He is even demanding that the EU changes its law and embraces the joy of methane emissions. China is betting that you cannot halt a technological steamroller or force the world to act against its own economic self-interest. Electro-tech will win in the end because it is massively more efficient. Critics of clean energy love to hurl the laws of thermodynamics at their foes but they commit two intellectual crimes themselves: they skip over the detail that two thirds of fossil energy is in aggregate lost to the skies in heat, while roughly 90pc of electric energy is used for its final function. They hide behind the fallacy of primary energy demand. How many times have you heard that 80pc of our energy still comes from fossils, as if that tells you anything? But when you replace a dinosaur light bulb with an LED bulb you slash energy use by 80pc at a stroke. When you switch from a home gas boiler to an electric heat pump powered off the UK grid on an average energy mix, you also cut it by about 80pc. Bingo. As expected, Trump's omnibus bill guts the Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden's Rooseveltian bid to throw America back into the global race for electro-tech supremacy before the window closes altogether. But it goes further. It actively handicaps those new technologies that fall foul of Maga ideology. It is not a return to the free market. It rigs the market to defend the legacy status quo, though geothermal is spared, and so is nuclear fusion. 'America's strength has always been that it lets old industries die but now it is now blocking the Schumpeterian process of creative destruction,' said Ember's Kingsmill Bond. Market commentary has honed in on America's spiralling debt-to-GDP ratio and the dangers of a compound interest trap, as indeed it should. The omnibus bill – a ' disgusting abomination ', says Musk – sets the US on a path of fiscal deficits of 6pc to 7pc of GDP as far as the eye can see. The US treasury relies on foreign funds to soak up this debt and they know that Trump will force the Federal Reserve to slash rates and hold down bond yields by fiat, debasing the coinage in the manner of Henry VIII after he had exhausted his plunder from the monasteries. But there is another question for markets. It will become clearer over the next five years that 'going electric' outcompetes fossils on pure price in most activities. At what point do global investors conclude that America is making a fatal and irreversible error? When will they judge that USA Inc no longer deserves an equity premium, and deserves a discount instead? That fundamental re-rating may not be far off. The bill eliminates tax credits for wind and solar but creates a new tax credit for coal. The federal coal royalty rate is slashed. Fees for wind and solar projects on federal land rise fivefold. The $7,500 (£5,495) subsidy for electric vehicles is axed. Electric vehicles (EVs) will pay a $250 annual road charge, double what petrol cars pay through fuel tax. Old Auto will get an effective $2,000 subsidy by making car loans tax deductible. Few EVs qualify because they fall foul of Trump's war on Chinese clean-tech components. The US Post Office has been ordered to sell its EV fleet. You get the drift. The whole thrust of policy is vindictive. Another generation of US car buyers will be locked into old technology. By the time that is cleared, EVs will have leapt further ahead and Chinese companies like BYD will own the planet. You can take the view that there should be no subsidies but the problem with this piety is that China already manufactures 80pc of the world's solar panels, 75pc of its batteries, and 70pc of its EVs. America needs turbo-charged incentives to have any hope of catching up. Wind and solar added over 90pc of all new power in the US over the last two years. Further projects are the only possible way to meet rising electricity demand for data centres between now and 2030 since there is a five-year supply chain blockage for new gas turbines. Every other option takes too long. Energy Innovation estimates that Trump's bill will deprive America of 340 gigawatts over the next decade and push up wholesale electricity prices by 74pc. Data centres will not be built because there won't be enough power. You could hardly find a better way to sabotage America's AI ambitions. It fritters away America's advantage in industrial costs just as China reaps a mirror-image gain from installing that much new wind and solar every year, at costs take your breath away. BNEF says the cost of Chinese solar modules fell below 10 cents per watt last year. That is tantamount to free power. The combined 24/7 cost of solar and batteries is already the cheapest form of power for the large majority of mankind in low latitudes. Four fifths live in countries that are net importers of fossil fuels. These nations have no interest in perpetuating a dependency on oil and gas that drains their balance of payments, year-in, year-out. It would be insane for them to invest in new infrastructure that locks them into this wealth loss for the next 40 years, or even to think of buying Trump's LNG at an exorbitant Asian spot price of $11 per MMBtu. They will buy Chinese solar panels, and then Chinese cars. They will go full electric. The energy trillions of the future will either go to China or those countries that carefully nurture their electrification industries.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
US adds 147,000 jobs in June, surpassing expectations amid Trump trade war
The US economy added 147,000 jobs in June, a sign of continuing strength in the labor market amid Donald Trump's trade war. The number of jobs added surpassed expectations, as economists largely anticipated a drop in openings. Instead, 3,000 more jobs were added in June compared with May, according to new job figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The unemployment rate actually decreased to 4.1%, down from 4.2% in May. Job gains were seen in state government and healthcare, which saw increases of 47,000 and 39,000 jobs, respectively. Meanwhile, federal government job losses continued, with another 7,000 roles down in June, as the Trump administration continues to cut jobs. The total job loss in the federal government has been 69,000 since January. Though the president's tariffs have rocked the US stock market, which has seen a dramatic rebound after dipping down 15% in the spring, economists have been worrying that the labor market has just been slower to show sensitivity to the tariffs. New data had shown employers showing signs of hesitancy. The payroll firm ADP found that the private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, far below the 100,000 increase that was expected, and the first decrease since March 2023. The dip in job openings does no necessarily mean companies are laying off more workers; rather, they are creating fewer new positions. 'Though layoffs continue to be rare, a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers led to job losses last month,' said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, in a statement. John Waldron, president of Goldman Sachs, said the American economy was 'breaking more to the positive' than many expected after Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs in early April. 'The US economy is surprisingly resilient, both in terms of consumer spend [and] the labor dynamic,' Waldron told reporters on Thursday. 'And just general economic economic activity is stronger than one might have guessed if you were sitting here on April 3, projecting what the tariff policy would deliver.' Data from BLS that measures job openings and turnovers in the labor market found that while job openings had climbed in May, to its highest level since November, the vast majority of openings were concentrated in the leisure and hospitality industry. Economists with Citigroup said the spike in new jobs could be temporary as companies opened new positions in response to Trump's crackdown on immigrants, fearing that immigrant employees could lose work permits. The White House has spent the last few months downplaying the impact tariffs have on the domestic economy, despite anxiety from consumers and businesses over the impact tariffs have on prices. The deadline for Trump's 90-day pause on some of his highest tariffs is scheduled to expire next week, as the White House tries to broker deals with dozens of countries that could face high tariffs. The White House announced on Tuesday a deal with Vietnam, whose products were scheduled to face a 46% tariff. The country agreed to a 20% tariff rate, with no tariffs placed on US exports. The deal with Vietnam follows deals Trump has made with the UK and China, but there are dozens of other countries whose exports could face high tariffs without a deal. Amid economic uncertainty, Trump has tried to pass blame on to the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell. On Monday, Trump sent an open letter to Powell demanding that the Fed lower interest rates. 'He's costing us a fortune because he keeps the rate way up,' Trump wrote on social media. Powell, in turn, has said that the Fed has not lowered interest rates because of economic uncertainty caused by Trump's tariffs. 'In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs,' Powell said. 'Essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs.'
