EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Group of Seven (G7) leaders agreed on Wednesday (June 17) to step up coordination to cut their countries' reliance on China for critical minerals, including plans to align stockpiling and launch a new platform with an expanded role for the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Western powers are racing to diversify supplies of metals vital to defence, technology and renewable energy and reduce dependence on China.
Beijing rattled global markets last year when export curbs on permanent magnets disrupted industries, exposing their reliance on a single source.
Without naming China, the leaders said they aim to reduce dependence on any one supplier outside the G7 and partner countries for rare earths and permanent magnets to below 60 per cent by 2030, with an ultimate goal of 50 per cent "as soon as possible".
"We are committed to working towards establishing harmonized, interoperable mechanisms .... This would start with two pilot critical minerals — lithium and nickel — and aim to avoid undermining competitiveness or imposing excessive cost burdens," the leaders said in a joint statement.
The mechanisms would later expand to five new minerals each year with a focus on rare earth elements.
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The 60 per cent target will be challenging, analysts said, especially in terms of processed rare earths and magnets where China controls 90 per cent of global output.
"The G7 statement is an important signal of intent, but the pace of diversification will ultimately depend on whether policy support translates into investment across the midstream and downstream parts of the value chain," said Neha Mukherjee, research manager at consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
The G7 will also set up a platform to coordinate policy, data sharing and crisis response, working with the IEA to monitor markets and flag risks, as first reported by Reuters.
The platform will draw on the agency for analysis and "early warnings of market distortions", the group said.
G7 countries and allies face the challenge of building full supply chains from mining to end-product, requiring billions of dollars of investment.
The leaders said G7 development finance institutions and export credit agencies should work together, including with the private sector, to back projects and infrastructure.
So far, countries have announced 195 projects since the start of 2026 with €64 billion (S$94.9 billion) in investment.
The statement added that countries would explore "price-gap subsidies, joint procurement instruments and trade-related instruments such as quotas and price floors", including through "plurilateral trade agreements".
The US is expected to propose legally binding deals with Japan and the EU this month.
The lack of commitment on elements such as price floors reflected what diplomatic sources told Reuters ahead of the meeting was scepticism by G7 allies about the Trump administration's push to boost critical minerals production by regulating prices.
The G7 committed to boost domestic stockpiling of critical minerals in both the industrial and public sectors.
The US launched its US$12 billion (S$15.5 billion) critical minerals reserve, Project Vault, earlier this year and said in April the first funding tranche was due to close soon.
The EU has shortlisted tungsten, rare earths and gallium for its first joint stockpile of critical minerals, sources told Reuters last month.
The statement also pledged to boost recycling of critical materials, aiming to increase the joint G7 recycling capacity to account for a "significant share" of annual consumption by 2030.
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