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The Diplomat
7 days ago
- Business
- The Diplomat
Operationalizing a Quad Critical Minerals Pact
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.
The Hill
14-06-2025
- The Hill
Which country do Americans most want to relocate to?
(NEXSTAR) – Looking to get away for a long, long time? You and thousands of others, apparently. Expatsi, an online resource for Americans thinking about relocating to a foreign country, has recently published the results of a 2024 study which polled more than 116,000 Americans about the countries they might like to move to, should they choose to live abroad. The participants — who all claimed to be considering a move overseas — were asked about their reasons for wanting to leave, their budgets, their plans to pay for healthcare, and any freedoms they hoped to retain/enjoy. They were also quizzed about their preferences for things like climate, proximity to a city, proximity to the ocean, or the languages they were willing to learn, among other factors. Based on their answers, Expatsi's assessment recommended an ideal abroad locale for each participant. And most often, that suggested locale was Portugal, which was recommended to 48% of participants, followed by France at 46% and Spain at 44%. (Expatsi's survey suggested a 'top ten' for every participant.) Expatsi's report did not reveal which metrics, specifically, that Portugal (or any of the other top recommendations) possessed that would make it so attractive to Americans looking to get away. But expats currently living in Portugal tend to enjoy relatively affordable housing and healthcare, a mild climate and low crime rates, according to International Living, which recently ranked Portugal as the second-best place to retire on its Annual Global Retirement Index. (Panama was first.) Expatsi, in its survey, also asked participants outright which country they most wanted to move to, and Portugal again came out on top, with 11% of all participants favoring it. (Spain and the U.K. rounded out the top three, with 10% and 8% of participants naming it as a top choice.) Plenty of Americans are actually making moves to Portugal, too. Between 2017 and 2022, the American expat population in Portugal increased nearly 240% to around 10,000, according to Forbes. And Americans have continued to express increased interest in moving to Portugal, especially after the 2024 U.S. presidential election, according to the founder of Portugal Pathways, which assists with relocation and visa applications. (Indeed, Expatsi also saw spikes in interest from poll participants in July and November 2024, following the first Biden-Trump debate and again after the election.) But despite high interest in Portugal from prospective expats, most Americans stay much closer to home when they actually relocate. Reports cited by the Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO) indicated that the largest percentages of American expatriates are living in Mexico and Canada, with estimates ranging from around 1.5 million to 2 million between both countries. (Mexico has slightly more than Canada, according to one estimate.) In either case, American expatriates still living in North America make up a major share of the total estimate of U.S. citizens living overseas. AARO cited calculations from 2022 and 2023 that estimated the number to be between 4.4 million and 5.5 million, not including members of the military or their families. Another estimate from 2022, from the nonprofit American Citizens Abroad, put that figure at around 5.1 million, albeit including military personnel. The U.S. Department of State does not provide more specific figures on overseas citizens, pointing to the fluctuating nature of Americans traveling or relocating at any given time. U.S. embassies in foreign countries try to maintain rough tallies, but nothing definite, according to a spokesperson for the State Department. Americans still hoping to move to Portugal, meanwhile, might be wise to see if their preferred neighborhoods are already too saturated with fellow emigrants or tourists. 'Porto is no longer a city. It's a tourism destination,' one person argued in a recent Reddit discussion, making similar claims of the Portuguese cities of Lisbon and Algarve. 'I'm starting to wonder why Portugal is so popular for expats,' the Reddit user continued. 'Maybe 10-20 years ago when everything was authentic and inexpensive?'
Russia Today
03-04-2025
- Business
- Russia Today
White House explains Russia's absence from tariff list
Russia was excluded from President Donald Trump's sweeping new tariffs because existing US sanctions have already severely restricted trade between the two countries, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said. Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday following the announcement of broad import duties, Bessent explained that Russia, along with Belarus, Cuba, and North Korea, was not targeted under the new measures as the US 'does not trade meaningfully with these countries.' In Russia's case, he emphasized that 'the sanctions are already doing the work that tariffs would.' Trump on Tuesday unveiled new tariffs ranging from 10% to 50% on imported goods from dozens of countries. They include 34% for Chinese imports, 20% on EU products, and 24% on goods from Japan. According to the president, the move is part of a broader strategy to promote American industry and correct what Trump described as 'grossly unfair trade imbalances.' READ MORE: Trump rolls out sweeping new tariffs The exclusion of Russia from this list raised questions from the media, given the ongoing Ukraine conflict and Washington's sanctions policy against Moscow. However, administration officials have argued that restrictions imposed since 2022 have already diminished trade to the point where tariffs would have little additional effect. American imports from Russia fell to approximately $3 billion in 2024, down 34.2% from the previous year, according to US government data. In contrast, the US imported $427 billion in goods from China during the same period, underscoring the limited scope of US–Russia trade. The Kremlin has denounced Western sanctions as illegal, repeatedly arguing that the restrictions have failed to destabilize the Russian economy or isolate it from the global financial system. With the escalation of Western sanctions since 2022, Russia has focused on shifting trade to Asia and the Global South, primarily China and India. READ MORE: Russian GDP grew 4.1% in 2024 – Mishustin Russia's GDP growth came in at 3.6% in 2023 and 4.1% last year, according to data published earlier this year by the state statistics agency, Rosstat. Nominal GDP hit a record high of 200 trillion rubles (over $2 trillion) by the end of 2024, the report indicated. Russia's Ministry of Economic Development expects a GDP growth rate of 2.5% this year, while the Bank of Russia is projecting a 0.5-1.5% expansion. At the same time, the Biden-Trump transition period has seen a modest thaw in US–Russia diplomatic contact. Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's special economic envoy and head of the country's sovereign wealth fund, visited Washington this week for closed-door meetings with administration officials and business leaders. It marked the highest-level Russian visit since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
NOAA to layoff 1,000 more workers at already depleted weather agency: ‘There's going to be pain and a lot of it'
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is bracing for even more devastating cuts to its workforce - with another 1,000 workers set to be let go, officials confirmed to The Independent. The latest firings would affect 10 percent of the agency's remaining workforce, though it's unclear which departments would be hit in the new round after 1,2000 were let go late last month. "NOAA was already understaffed for the mission that is congressionally mandated. And to sustain this initial round of cuts, much less further cuts, much less the fiscal cuts that are in the continuing resolution, there's going to be pain and a lot of it,' an unnamed official who left during the Biden-Trump transition told The Independent. The first layoffs hit the agency at the end of last month, as officials warned about the impacts on the weather forecasting agency. 'Until NOAA's response is provided we won't know which personnel and which offices will be affected, but a cut of that size (1,029 staff) on top of the almost 1,200 already either terminated or issued deferred resignations will have significant impact on NOAA's mission,' former administrator Dr. Richard Spinrad told The Independent in a statement. He repeated the message that even before terminations, retirements or reduction in force that 'NOAA was already understaffed.' Since then, the effects have threatened critical and local forecasting facilities, commercial fisheries and canceled internships. 'Everything that's happened is just making the U.S. less safe and really making the world less safe,' Tom DiLiberto, a climate scientist who had worked at NOAA since 2010, previously told The Independent. '...This affects everybody, no matter where you live.' The former official, who called terminations "capricious, malicious, ill-informed" and "poorly executed,' said they had heard through the grapevine that the Boston, Boise, Idaho, and at least one forecasting center in the middle of the country had been so decimated by buy-outs and terminations that it was unclear if they would be able to sustain staffing of the offices 24/7. The staff were doing their best to provide services with the workers they had. "So it is, like, cutting off your nose to spite your face. Which seems a bit counterintuitive if your goal is really to serve the American people,' said the official. Since the first cuts, there have been reports of some reinstatements at the National Weather Service. The official said they felt like the outcry over the impacts had been successful. "But, it's not just the weather forecasters on the ground. It's the technicians that keep all of the computer power running. It's the folks that operate the satellites, that are also part of NOAA. It's our ocean data buoy network. Our tide and gauge network, NOAA is a great example of how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And, you need all of those parts in order to effectively provide the data services and products that the American public has come to expect,' the official said. The official said that if today is meant to be a time when the American public gets more for less, that might not work at NOAA. 'Especially when the elements of Project 2025 have the weather service being privatized. That means you're going to pay for data you get for essential six cents a day now,' the official said. 'And, you're going to pay a whole lot more than six cents a day to get it from the private weather companies." The six cents is how much each American pays to fund NOAA's entire operation per day. "I think that there's a lot of oops-ing going on. And, that may be the way you do it in corporate America,' the official added, 'But, when you're breaking things that are public services, you can't necessarily easily repair or maybe ever repair the things that you have broken.'
The Independent
11-03-2025
- Climate
- The Independent
NOAA to layoff 1,000 more workers at already depleted weather agency: ‘There's going to be pain and a lot of it'
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is bracing for even more devastating cuts to its workforce - with another 1,000 workers set to be let go, officials confirmed to The Independent. The latest firings would affect 10 percent of the agency's remaining workforce, though it's unclear which departments would be hit in the new round after 1,2000 were let go late last month. "NOAA was already understaffed for the mission that is congressionally mandated. And to sustain this initial round of cuts, much less further cuts, much less the fiscal cuts that are in the continuing resolution, there's going to be pain and a lot of it,' an unnamed official who left during the Biden-Trump transition told The Independent. The first layoffs hit the agency at the end of last month, as officials warned about the impacts on the weather forecasting agency. 'Until NOAA's response is provided we won't know which personnel and which offices will be affected, but a cut of that size (1,029 staff) on top of the almost 1,200 already either terminated or issued deferred resignations will have significant impact on NOAA's mission,' former administrator Dr. Richard Spinrad told The Independent in a statement. He repeated the message that even before terminations, retirements or reduction in force that 'NOAA was already understaffed.' Since then, the effects have threatened critical and local forecasting facilities, commercial fisheries and canceled internships. 'Everything that's happened is just making the U.S. less safe and really making the world less safe,' Tom DiLiberto, a climate scientist who had worked at NOAA since 2010, previously told The Independent. '...This affects everybody, no matter where you live.' The former official, who called terminations "capricious, malicious, ill-informed" and "poorly executed,' said they had heard through the grapevine that the Boston, Boise, Idaho, and at least one forecasting center in the middle of the country had been so decimated by buy-outs and terminations that it was unclear if they would be able to sustain staffing of the offices 24/7. The staff were doing their best to provide services with the workers they had. "So it is, like, cutting off your nose to spite your face. Which seems a bit counterintuitive if your goal is really to serve the American people,' said the official. Since the first cuts, there have been reports of some reinstatements at the National Weather Service. The official said they felt like the outcry over the impacts had been successful. "But, it's not just the weather forecasters on the ground. It's the technicians that keep all of the computer power running. It's the folks that operate the satellites, that are also part of NOAA. It's our ocean data buoy network. Our tide and gauge network, NOAA is a great example of how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And, you need all of those parts in order to effectively provide the data services and products that the American public has come to expect,' the official said. The official said that if today is meant to be a time when the American public gets more for less, that might not work at NOAA. 'Especially when the elements of Project 2025 have the weather service being privatized. That means you're going to pay for data you get for essential six cents a day now,' the official said. 'And, you're going to pay a whole lot more than six cents a day to get it from the private weather companies." The six cents is how much each American pays to fund NOAA's entire operation per day. "I think that there's a lot of oops-ing going on. And, that may be the way you do it in corporate America,' the official added, 'But, when you're breaking things that are public services, you can't necessarily easily repair or maybe ever repair the things that you have broken.'
