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US pushes allies to pay critical minerals premium
- US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has urged allies to pay a “national security premium” for critical minerals sourced outside China
- US and EU are now assessing reference prices, border-adjusted price floors, price gap subsidies and offtake agreements
- US was 100% net import reliant for 12 critical mineral commodities in 2024, according to the USGS
The US is urging allies to pay more for critical minerals sourced outside China, in a direct challenge to the low-cost supply chains that have dominated global mining and processing for two decades.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told the Financial Times that allies must be ready to pay a “national security premium” for minerals from trusted suppliers.
“When trading partners express concerns about the economic cost of price floors or mechanisms, I just say: what you’re talking about, which is cost efficiency, this is why we are in the situation we’re in,” Greer told the FT. “There is a premium we pay, and I call it the national security premium, and we will all pay a national security premium to have a secure supply chain.”
The message is blunt: cheap minerals helped build China’s dominance and higher-cost supply may now be needed to break it. Greer is developing proposals for allied trading partners, including Europe, to create price mechanisms that support non-China mineral supply chains.
Any premium would mark a major change in how critical minerals are priced with calls, not just to diversify, but to pay for diversification.
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What is the critical minerals premium?
The latest plan says both sides will assess mechanisms including reference prices, border-adjusted price floors, standards-based markets, price gap subsidies and offtake agreements, focused first on selected critical minerals and supply chains, according to the official US-EU Critical Minerals Action Plan.
That matters because many Western projects fail at the same point: not geology, but economics.
New mines and processing plants need long-term price certainty. China’s scale, state support and processing dominance can make Western projects look uneconomic when judged only against spot prices.
Washington’s answer is to create a different market.
Why now?
The US was 100% net import reliant for 12 critical mineral commodities in 2024, while another 28 critical mineral commodities had import reliance above 50% of apparent consumption, according to the USGS.
China remains central to this problem.
The USGS said the US imported at least 29 mineral commodities from China from 2020 to 2023, according to a USGS analysis of mineral import reliance.
For example, a major US defense prime conducted a recent, rare deep trace of its titanium supply chain, reaching 13 tiers down — it led directly to “Chinese mines, Chinese roads, and Chinese trucks” as confirmed by their supply chain specialists, according Stanford’s recent Critical Minerals and the Business of National Security report.
See our analysis on China’s titanium dominance: vertical supply chain, cost edge, and global ripple effects.
This is the policy gap Washington is trying to close. Critical minerals are needed for batteries, electric vehicles, grid equipment, semiconductors and defense systems. But many supply chains still run through China.
Can critical minerals become “free-range eggs”?
The Oregon Group raised the core problem in 2024: commodities are meant to be identical. A tonne of nickel is a tonne of nickel. A kilo of rare earth oxide is a kilo of rare earth oxide. That makes it hard to charge a premium based on where or how the material was produced.
But the same analysis argued that the market may still split. Just as consumers pay more for free-range eggs, Western buyers may need to pay more for critical minerals produced under higher environmental, labour and security standards.
The challenge is scale.
That is the gap the US is now trying to close.
No longer through consumer branding, but through policy.
What changes for prices?
The result of any official policy to pay a premium could be a more fragmented, birfucated global minerals market. One price may reflect the cheapest available material, often shaped by Chinese supply. Another may reflect verified, secure, non-China supply backed by allied buyers, offtake contracts, subsidies or price floors.
The US-EU action plan already points in that direction, with tools including price gap subsidies and offtake agreements.
Europe is also trying to build its own pricing infrastructure. EIT RawMaterials, an EU-funded agency, is working with Metalshub to develop a regional trading and pricing system for critical minerals such as rare earths, because weak price transparency has made it harder to finance new projects, according to Reuters.
The direction is clear. Governments want markets to price security, not just volume.
Conclusion
The premium will not be free.
Higher critical mineral prices could raise costs for battery makers, automakers, defense suppliers and grid equipment manufacturers. It could also create tension with allies if Washington is seen as shifting the cost of supply-chain security onto Europe and other partners.
There is also execution risk. Price floors can support new supply, but they can distort markets if they are too broad, too slow or too political. The question is whether governments can design a premium that funds real capacity rather than protecting uneconomic supply.
For now, the US is making the strategic choice explicit. If allies want critical minerals outside China, they may have to pay more for them.
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US invests $8.6 billion in critical minerals deals since January 2025
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US government investment in equity stakes in private-sector critical minerals companies since January 2025 hit US$8.6 billion, in the biggest such push into strategic industries since the Second World War.
The push is part of a wider US$20.9 billion across sixteen deals involving direct government ownership, as Washington works to lock in critical supply from an industry where private capital has sometimes struggled to deliver secure supply of copper, nickel, cobalt, rare earths, lithium, and more.
In particular, following China’s export controls on rare earths in April and October 2025, the US scaled up its investment in critical minerals companies, which now account for nine of sixteen deals to date, using a range of grants, loans, and tax incentives.
The mining deals include:
| Company | Date | Equity | Agency | Authority | Tools Used |
| MP Materials | Jul 10, 2025 | $400 million | Department of Defense | DPA Title III, OSC | Equity, Loans, Warrants, Offtakes, Price Floors |
| Lithium Americas | Oct 1, 2025 | — | Department of Energy | DOE LPO Loan | Loans, Warrants |
| Trilogy Metals | Oct 6, 2025 | $36 million | Department of Defense | OSC + DPA | Equity, Warrants |
| ReElement Technologies | Nov 2, 2025 | — | Department of Defense | OSC Loan + DPA | Loans, Warrants |
| Vulcan Elements | Nov 2, 2025 | $50 million | Department of Defense, Commerce | CHIPS + OSC Loan | Equity, Loans, Warrants, Grants |
| Korea Zinc | Dec 15, 2025 | $2.2 billion | Department of Defense, Commerce | OSC, CHIPS | Equity, Loans, Warrants, Grants |
| USA Rare Earths | Jan 26, 2026 | $280 million | Department of Commerce, Energy | CHIPS | Equity, Loans, Warrants |
| Atlantic Alumina | Jan 12, 2026 | $150 million | Department of Defense | Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program | Equity |
| Orion Critical Mineral Consortium (Orion CMC) | 2026 | $100 million | Development Finance Corporation | DFC | Equity, Loan |
“Decades of lackadaisical policymaking and oversight have left glaring holes in America’s supply chains and industrial base – vulnerabilities that the Trump administration is committed to using every tool at our disposal to rectify” — said White House spokesman Kush Desai to Bloomberg.
The process started under President Joe Biden (2021-2025), with deals totaling at least US$80million:
- US$30 million equity investment in TechMet in FY2022
- US$50 million equity investment tied to Phalaborwa Rare Earths through TechMet/DFC structures
We suspect this cost number is likely only the “tip of the iceberg” once you start including the Trump’s administration’s US$12 billion for the critical minerals stock pile “Project Vault”, and others.
And private co-investors include JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, as well as foreign partners including Emirati sovereign wealth fund and Japan.
On partnerships, the number is easier to undercount than overcount because many are frameworks rather than cash deals. At a minimum, the US has built a sizeable architecture that includes the Minerals Security Partnership, which brings together 14 countries and the EU; the older Energy Resource Governance Initiative launched in 2019; the U.S.-Canada Critical Minerals Action Plan in 2020; the U.S.-Brazil Critical Minerals Working Group in 2020; MINVEST; the U.S.-DRC strategic minerals partnership; and, in February 2026 alone, Reuters reported 11 new bilateral deals plus a trilateral arrangement involving the EU and Japan.
It is part of an attempt to accelerate a model that turns the US government into financier, equity holder, offtake architect and geopolitical broker. And, after years of the US talking about mineral security, they are now starting to put the money where their mouth is, so to speak.
For mining companies the scale of the investment by the US government helps put a floor in the risk involved in moving ahead with projects.
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Russia imposes helium export controls amid global shortage
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- Russia has imposed helium export controls through the end of 2027, requiring special approval for shipments outside the Eurasian Economic Union
- Qatar produced about 63 million cubic meters of helium in 2025, close to one-third of global supply
- helium spot prices have doubled since the Middle East crisis began
- Russia is the world’s third-largest helium producer and accounts for around 8% of global output
Russia has imposed helium export controls through the end of 2027, requiring special approval for shipments outside the Eurasian Economic Union, just as the global helium market is already under strain from Middle East disruption.
This is no niche gas story: helium sits inside semiconductor manufacturing, MRI systems, aerospace, welding and leak detection.
But, the conflict in the Middle East has disrupted up to a third of global helium supply after attacks on Qatar’s gas processing facilities, putting helium at the top of global headlines. Helium spot prices have doubled since the Middle East crisis began, with warnings that spot helium prices could spike by 50%–200% in severe shortage scenarios.
Buyers, particularly in Asia, are scrambling for supply after Qatar halted LNG production and associated helium output. Because helium is extracted as a byproduct of natural gas processing, damage to gas infrastructure translates directly into lost helium volumes.
Why do Russia’s helium export controls matter now?
Qatar produced about 63 million cubic meters of helium in 2025 out of roughly 190 million cubic meters globally, or close to one-third of world supply.
Russia is the world’s third-largest helium producer and accounts for around 8% of global production, adding another shock to global helium supply.
Who is exposed?
Chipmakers are near the front of the line, with reports that helium shortages are already starting to affect parts of the tech supply chain, with executives warning that tightening supply was forcing companies to seek alternatives. Helium is used in cooling, leak detection and precision manufacturing in semiconductors, and there are few easy substitutes in the most demanding applications.
Medical imaging is another pressure point, with almost no substitutes for helium in cryogenic applications requiring extremely low temperatures, even if some superconducting systems are being designed to use less of it over time.
Conclusion
Russia’s export controls land at a moment when helium moves from a “background industrial gas” to a strategic priority, fitting a broader pattern already visible across critical material chains: once supply concentration meets war, sanctions or state intervention, “non-core” industrial inputs can turn strategic very quickly.
And the biggest global beneficiary at the moment is the USA:
China moves to halt sulphuric acid exports as war-driven supply shock deepens
China is planning to halt sulphuric acid exports from May, tightening an already stressed market for one of mining’s most important industrial chemicals, according to Argus Media — increasing risks for copper, nickel and fertilizer supply chains.
Since the start of the Middle East crisis and closure of the Strait of Hormuz, sulphur prices have increased approx 70%; and, for example, sulphuric acid prices in Chile, which buys over 1 million tons of Chinese sulfuric acid every year where a fifth of the copper output in Chile — the world’s No. 1 producer — involves a type of processing that depends on sulfuric acid, have increased 44% in just one month.
The problem, as we highlighted in our recent analysis — Strait of Hormuz is chokepoint for sulphuric acid and critical metal processing — the Middle East accounted for around 24% of global sulphur production at 83.87 million metric tons last year; including 50% of seabourne trade of sulphur, which must be exported via the Strait of Hormuz.
And, the sulphuric acid market was already tight before the latest Middle East disruption, increasing 500% before the latest conflict in Iran started.
Sulphuric acid is a core input across hydrometallurgy, especially for acid-intensive processing routes such as HPAL nickel and oxide copper leaching. For example, Indonesia has the clearest exposure to the tightening sulphur supply — the country now accounts for more than 60% of global nickel production — and imports around 75% of its sulphur from the Middle East.
The loss of Chinese volumes will be difficult to offset, given the parallel shortage of sulfur feedstocks, according to Peter Harrisson, an acid analyst at consultancy CRU told Bloomberg.
Bloomberg also reports that Beijing’s planned export halt will cover sulphuric acid produced as a byproduct of copper and zinc smelting, cutting another source of supply to overseas buyers just as war disruption has already squeezed the market.
A tighter acid market threatens higher costs and possible bottlenecks for miners and processors in major producing regions, including African copper belts and Indonesia’s nickel sector, both of which depend heavily on reliable sulphur and acid supply.
For a market already discovering that sulphuric acid can become a strategic choke point, China’s planned ban is another sign that this crisis is spreading far beyond oil.
Read our latest analysis:
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How tokenization could reshape commodity supply chains
For decades, global commodity supply chains have operated in a largely analog way. Metals are extracted from the ground, sold through layers of intermediaries, shipped across continents, and ultimately delivered to manufacturers. Those manufacturers often have limited visibility into where those materials originated—or how they moved through the system.
That model worked reasonably well when supply chains were stable and commodities were abundant. But in today’s world of geopolitical fragmentation, energy transition demand, and increasing scrutiny around supply chain transparency, the traditional structure is beginning to show its limits.
A growing number of companies are now asking whether emerging technologies—particularly tokenization—could fundamentally change how commodities move through global supply chains.
SUPPLY CHAINS BUILT FOR A DIFFERENT ERA
Modern commodity supply chains were designed primarily for efficiency. Producers sold raw materials to traders, traders sold to processors and manufacturers, and pricing was largely determined through global exchanges or long-term contracts.
While this system created liquidity and scale, it also introduced complexity and opacity. A single ton of copper or nickel may change hands multiple times before it ever reaches the factory floor. For manufacturers trying to track sourcing, environmental standards, or geopolitical risk, that lack of visibility can create real challenges.
Recent supply disruptions have made those challenges even more apparent. Companies building everything from electric vehicles to renewable energy infrastructure increasingly need reliable access to critical materials. That includes copper and lithium. It also includes nickel and rare earth elements.
Yet the traditional commodity trading system often offers limited transparency into how those materials are sourced and delivered.
Why The Next Billion-Dollar Startup May Be Built Around Commodities
Founders who bridge physical and digital economies may build the next generation of unicorns — by Anthony Milewski for The Entrepreneur
Key Takeaways
- Commodity supply gaps are creating overlooked, high-growth opportunities beyond traditional software startups.
- Electrification and AI infrastructure are driving structural demand for critical minerals worldwide.
For much of the past two decades, the most valuable startups in the world were built on software. Founders created platforms that scaled quickly, required relatively little physical infrastructure and relied primarily on code rather than raw materials. From social media to cloud computing, the formula for building a large company is increasingly centered on digital products.
But a subtle shift is underway.
As the global economy becomes more electrified, more automated and more dependent on physical infrastructure, the next wave of high-growth startups may look very different.
In fact, some of the most significant entrepreneurial opportunities ahead may not be in software at all. They may be in commodities.
The physical economy is back in focus
For years, entrepreneurs were encouraged to avoid capital-intensive industries. The conventional wisdom was simple: software businesses scale faster and require less upfront investment than companies dealing with physical resources.
That logic helped fuel one of the most remarkable periods of digital innovation in history. But it also had an unintended consequence. While startups flooded into apps, marketplaces and social platforms, far fewer entrepreneurs focused on the physical materials that underpin modern economies.
Those materials are now back in the spotlight.
The global push toward electrification, renewable energy, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing is driving enormous demand for commodities such as copper, lithium, nickel and rare earth elements. These resources power everything from electric vehicles and battery storage systems to data centers and transmission infrastructure.
In other words, the technologies shaping the future depend on a massive foundation of physical materials.
And the supply of those materials is far from guaranteed.
Russia imposes helium export controls amid global shortage
China moves to halt sulphuric acid exports as war-driven supply shock deepens
How tokenization could reshape commodity supply chains
Why The Next Billion-Dollar Startup May Be Built Around Commodities
Innovation alone won’t fix the energy transition
Transforming the energy system requires changing how companies plan, procure, and execute.
For years, the energy transition has been framed as a race to innovate.
Better batteries. Cheaper solar. Smarter software. Faster deployment.
That framing made sense at the beginning. New technologies really were the constraint. Costs were too high, performance wasn’t there yet, and scaling felt hypothetical.
But we’re past that phase now.
Many of the core technologies work. They’re proven, bankable, and increasingly competitive. And yet, everywhere you look, the transition is slowing down in practice. Projects are delayed. Costs are rising again. Timelines that once felt ambitious now look unrealistic.
This isn’t because innovation failed. It’s because innovation was asked to do a job it can’t do on its own.
The problem is how we run companies
Modern business culture, especially in tech, has trained leaders to believe that speed solves most problems. Move fast. Stay flexible. Keep assets light. Optimize for efficiency.
That approach works incredibly well in digital environments, where inputs are elastic and constraints can be abstracted away. If something breaks, you patch it. If demand spikes, you scale it in the cloud.
The energy transition doesn’t work like that.
It’s a physical transformation. It depends on power grids, transmission lines, factories, mines, refineries, ports, labor, and permitting. These systems don’t scale on quarterly timelines, and they don’t respond well to improvisation.
When organizations built for speed collide with systems governed by physics and construction schedules, friction is inevitable.
We applied a software mindset to a hardware problem. A lot of the current frustration comes from a category error.
We treated the energy transition like a software rollout: build the tech, line up the capital, and let the rest catch up. In reality, the “rest” is most of the work.
Solar projects stall not because panels don’t exist, but because grid connections aren’t ready. Battery deployments slow because materials and manufacturing capacity lag demand. Electrification plans run ahead of transmission, permitting, and workforce constraints.
These aren’t failures of innovation. They’re failures of coordination and planning.
Why The Era Of Cheap Commodities Is Likely Over—And What It Means For Corporate Strategy
For much of the past three decades, businesses operated under a powerful assumption: Commodities would remain abundant, affordable and globally accessible. If prices rose, they would fall again. If supply tightened, markets would respond. Strategy focused on efficiency, not resilience. I believe that era is over.
Today’s commodity markets are no longer shaped primarily by cyclical demand or short-term disruptions. They are being reshaped by structural forces—geopolitics, industrial policy, underinvestment and the physical realities of energy and infrastructure build-out. For corporate leaders, this is not a pricing issue. It is a strategic one.
Why Cheap Commodities Are A Thing Of The Past
The period of relatively cheap and stable commodities that defined the late 20th and early 21st centuries was not normal—it was exceptional. In studying these eras, I’ve identified a few driving factors: globalization and open trade flows, significant excess capacity built during prior investment cycles, low geopolitical friction and capital markets that consistently funded new supply. Those conditions no longer hold.
Instead, companies now face a world where:
- Critical mineral supply chains are concentrated in a few jurisdictions
- Export controls and resource nationalism influence availability
- Permitting timelines for new supply are lengthening
- Capital investment in mining and energy has lagged behind long-term demand
The result is a persistent mismatch between what modern economies want to build—and what the physical world can supply.
Why Founders Can’t Ignore Commodity Tokenization Anymore
Commodity tokenization lets founders manage real-world asset risks — like energy, metals and fuel — by turning them into flexible, digitally tracked economic interests.
Key Takeaways
- Commodity tokenization modernizes ownership and financing without changing the underlying physical assets.
- Founders who understand commodity exposure early gain optionality in volatile, capital-constrained markets.
Most founders don’t think much about commodities. Oil, metals, power, raw materials — those are background inputs. Something suppliers deal with. Something finance prices in. Something outside the “real” business of building products and acquiring customers.
That mental model used to work. It doesn’t anymore.
As supply chains fragment, capital becomes more selective and volatility turns from cyclical to structural, commodities are creeping closer to the center of how companies are built, financed and scaled. One of the most misunderstood developments accelerating that shift is commodity tokenization.
Ignore the crypto noise for a moment. This isn’t about speculation. It’s about plumbing.
So, what is commodity tokenization — really?
Strip away the jargon and tokenization is a pretty simple concept.
It’s the process of representing a real, verifiable commodity or commodity-linked asset — physical inventory, future production, royalties, streams — on digital rails. Each token corresponds to a defined economic interest, with rules around ownership, transfer and settlement baked in.
The important part is what doesn’t change: the asset is still real. Copper is still copper. Oil still has to be produced. Power still has to be generated.
Tokenization doesn’t replace the physical world. It changes how capital interacts with it.
Indonesia orders world’s biggest nickel mine to cut ore quota for 2026
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PT Weda Bay Nickel has been told to file a 2026 work plan reflecting 12 million wet metric tonnes of annual production and sales, a sharp cut from the 42 million wet metric tonnes permitted for 2025, according to a statement from Eramet.
The company said the 12 million figure was an initial notification and that it would apply promptly for an increase to the 2026 volume.
The Weda Bay complex, the largest in the world, is operated by Eramet and Tsingshan Holding Group and is central to Indonesia’s nickel supply chain, after Jakarta’s ore export ban helped drive heavy investment into domestic processing.
Nickel prices jumped on the news. Three-month nickel on the London Metal Exchange rose 2.2% to $17,880/t and hit $17,980/t, the highest since Jan 30, 2026.
The cut also fits a broader tightening of Indonesia’s approved mining plans for 2026. Indonesian media have cited official comments that national nickel ore work-plan approvals total roughly 260–270 million tonnes, down from 379 million tonnes in 2025, according to Reuters and the Financial Times.
Why it matters: Indonesia is now using permits and quotas as a direct market lever. For investors, that raises the upside to any sustained tightening — and the policy risk that quotas can be revised again. Financial Times
Our latest report on whether nickel hit $25,000 in 2026?