The deals, announced as Group of Seven energy ministers concluded a meeting in Toronto, involve a range of metals essential to high-tech products, including the rare earth materials where China has built outsized control.
The initial steps taken by the newly launched G7 Critical Minerals Production Alliance "sends the world a very clear message," Canada's Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told reporters.
"We are serious about reducing market concentration and dependencies," he said, referencing China.
Ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States met in Toronto after US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping reached a deal that will see Beijing suspend certain rare earth export restrictions for at least one year.
Rare earths are needed to make the magnets used in a range of sophisticated products, and the prospect of China limiting exports had rattled markets.
China has overwhelming dominance in the processing of rare earths, and Hodgson conceded that broadening supply chains would take time.
He said the goal was building systems that stretch from "from mine to magnet."
"That doesn't exist in the West today...It will take time," he said.
The 26 projects announced include partnerships across the G7 and its allies, but the United States has not initially signed on to a specific arrangement.
- Non-market tactics -
By US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who attended the meeting, had earlier told reporters that Trump's administration was in full alignment with G7 allies on countering China's market influence.
There was "no disagreement within the group," Wright said.
He also said the G7 will have to use "non-market" tactics to counter China's position.
"China, frankly, just used non-market practices to squish the rest of the world out of manufacturing those products, so it got strategic leverage. Everybody sees that now," Wright told reporters.
"We need to establish our own ability to mine, process, refine, and create the products that come out of rare earth elements," Wright said.
"We're going to have to intervene and use some non-market forces."
Repeating a widely shared accusation made against Beijing, Wright said China had used its rare earth stockpiles to manipulate global prices.
"As soon as you start to invest, someone floods the market and crushes the prices. (China has) chilled investments," he said.
China's suspension of rare earth controls applies to EU: official
Rome (AFP) Oct 31, 2025 -
The EU's commissioner for trade on Friday said China's one-year suspension on its restrictions of rare earth materials would apply to the bloc as well as the United States.
"My understanding is that the agreement, which was found between the US and China in this matter, is 'erga omnes', so we should apply it to all and, of course, including the European Union," Maros Sefcovic told reporters during a visit to Rome.
Following discussions with the United States, China on Thursday said it would suspend certain export restrictions announced in October, including on rare earth materials, for one year.
The controls on rare earths -- a major sticking point in trade negotiations between US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping this week -- have rattled markets and snarled supply chains.
Sefcovic, who met both with Italy's Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, said the EU was now having "high-level official talks on export controls" with China.
"I will speak again with my Chinese counterpart very, very soon," he added.
- EU bloc bidding -
China is the world's leading producer of the minerals used to make magnets that are crucial to the auto, electronics and defence industries.
Separate to the October restrictions, it has since April required licences for certain exports, a system Sefcovic said was not working.
"We have not very positive experience with the issuing of export licenses for the rare earths," he said.
Only 50 percent of EU applications had been "properly processed" so companies received the needed rare earth materials, he noted.
"It has direct implications on the production capacities of the companies in the EU."
After meeting Tajani at the foreign ministry, Sefcovic told reporters he envisioned a "common purchase of critical raw materials" by the EU.
"We can do the bidding on behalf of the biggest trading bloc in the world, which is the European Union, and to get the critical raw materials for a better price," he said
The stockpiles would be "stored in Europe so we will not be under this permanent tension".
Tajani proposed that Italy could host such a storage site.
- 'Dumping' dispute -
Sefcovic also said the EU was backing Italy, which is facing punitive tariffs on exports of pasta to the United States, by showing its US counterparts that their "surprising" accusation of dumping was unfounded.
Last month, the US Department of Commerce said it would impose provisional anti-dumping duties of over 91 percent on Italian pasta makers from January. This would be applied on top of the 15-percent tariff imposed on all EU imports.
"This was a very surprising move from the United States towards the European Union, towards pasta producers," Sefcovic said.
He said he believed the commerce department "didn't have proper or enough detailed information from some producers of pasta in Italy" so the EU, along with Italy and its pasta producers, was working to provide it.
China made a 'mistake' with rare-earth controls: Bessent to FT
Gyeongju, South Korea (AFP) Nov 1, 2025 -
China's decision to impose export controls on rare earths was a "mistake" and drew attention to Beijing's ability to use them as a coercive tool, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview published Saturday.
Beijing announced new controls in October on exports of technologies related to rare earths, crucial for manufacturing in defence, automobile, consumer electronics and other industries.
The restrictions were a major sticking point in trade negotiations between Beijing and Washington, and China said it would halt them after presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met this week.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Bessent said: "China has alerted everyone to the danger. They've made a real mistake."
"It's one thing to put the gun on the table. It's another thing to fire shots in the air," Bessent said.
Xi and Trump met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the South Korea this week.
Following the talks, China said it would suspend certain export restrictions, including on rare-earth materials, for one year.
The controls had rattled markets and snarled supply chains in the strategic sector, a key source of international leverage for Beijing.
Bessent told the FT that China would not be able to pull the same move again, saying: "We have offsetting measures."
"I think the Chinese leadership were slightly alarmed by the global backlash to their export controls," he said.
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