Critical raw materials (CRMs) and rare earth elements (REEs) are essential for defence, emerging technologies, and the energy transition. However, supply chains remain highly concentrated, with China dominating much of the refining and processing.
Asymmetries and choke points highlight the need to control these resources. Minerals diplomacy has become a central tool for geoeconomic actors, including the US and the EU, to secure CRMs and REEs, often through deals with resource-holding third countries. This creates new partnerships while heightening competition to bind third-party countries, which, in turn, seek to assert their agency.
Minerals diplomacy blends cooperative, coercive, and binding elements, as governments combine bargaining, leverage, and deals to maintain access to critical resources. States are also deploying creative solutions, such as recycling and reusing mining waste, to reduce external dependencies and enable more self-reliant systems, but this requires effective public-private cooperation.
The intensifying contest for CRMs and REEs exposes governance gaps. Accounting for local perspectives, establishing stronger international oversight and global benchmarks, and ensuring equitable outcomes could ease competition, give third-party countries a greater voice, and serve as a tool of geoeconomic soft power.
