POLITICO - Europe flails as US launches critical minerals land grab - March 11, 2026 6:00 am CET By Carlo Martuscelli, Frida Preuß and Jacopo Barigazzi

 POLITICO

Europe flails as US launches critical minerals land grab

A joint initiative to break dependence on China could result in Europe overpaying to ensure security of supply for the Americans.

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As the two sides find some common ground after a rocky period culminating in Donald Trump’s threats at the turn of the year to annex Greenland — an agreement risks cementing an unequal partnership dominated by Washington. | Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images

March 11, 2026 6:00 am CET

By Carlo Martuscelli, Frida Preuß and Jacopo Barigazzi

BRUSSELS — The European Union and the U.S. are closing in on a deal to address a problem that is vexing leaders on both sides of the Atlantic: their dependence on China for critical mineral inputs. 

But even as the two sides find some common ground after a rocky period — culminating in President Donald Trump’s threats at the turn of the year to annex Greenland — an agreement risks cementing an unequal partnership dominated by Washington. 

Brussels, despite working on the issue for over a decade, has produced a series of targets, roadmaps and handshake alliances that have delivered few results when it comes to securing the critical materials used in everything from radar installations to electric vehicle batteries. 

The Trump administration, by contrast, has been on a dealmaking spree, using cold cash to take stakes in projects worldwide. 

With Brussels trailing in Washington’s wake, the risk is that a proposed buyers’ club — which would envisage a price floor to underwrite alternative sources of supply — could turn into a mechanism whereby the Europeans end up sponsoring the U.S.'s priority access to the critical minerals.

“The U.S. is much more aggressive in ensuring the security of raw materials,” said Andreas Kroll, CEO of Noble Elements, a German-based rare earths commodity trading firm. 

Europe is “sitting at the kids' table” compared with the U.S., Kroll added. “Many of our mid-sized customers are asking themselves whether they should relocate their production to the U.S.” due to supply dependencies.

Tobias Gehrke, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while Europe was better off working with the Americans, the bloc should have no illusions. 

“It’s America First, also in minerals,” Gehrke said. “America is going to buy up all the assets — Europe doesn’t have enough money to compete.”

Talk shop

The two sides have been in negotiations since Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted a high-level ministerial meeting on Feb. 4 in Washington to launch a critical minerals alliance spanning more than 50 countries.

At the meeting, Rubio warned that the minerals were “heavily concentrated in the hands of one country” and had become a “tool of leverage in geopolitics.” He was referring to China, which last October forced Trump to back down on a massive tariff package by threatening to throttle exports of critical minerals.  

During Industry Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné’s trip to Washington, the two sides announced they would sign a memorandum of understanding on critical raw materials within 30 days. By working together they could avoid bidding up prices, while creating a bigger, more secure market for non-Chinese sellers.

Marco Rubio warned that the minerals were “heavily concentrated in the hands of one country.” | Alex Wong/Getty Images

So far, no deal has materialized, but European Commission spokesperson Siobhan McGarry said that “discussions are well advanced.”   

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said during the February meeting that Washington might try to establish price floors for critical minerals with friendly countries. The idea would be to ensure that Chinese firms, backed by the state, couldn’t undercut Western producers and drive them out of business.

A Commission official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Brussels was looking at that option, but that any price floor would have to be carefully targeted — and was outside the scope of the memorandum regardless.

Shopping spree

The difference between how the EU and the U.S. approach the critical minerals question is fundamental: Brussels prefers to build legal frameworks and hatch long-term plans, while Washington opens its wallet and intervenes directly in the market.

Brussels has set targets to mine 10 percent, process 40 percent and recycle 25 percent of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials by 2030. Last October it announced it would launch a European Critical Raw Materials Centre to purchase and stockpile minerals, as well as €3 billion in funding for mining projects. It also signed strategic partnerships with 15 countries aimed at opening up mineral exploitation to European miners.

Washington, by contrast, has taken a less subtle approach.

In late 2025, Séjourné was meant to fly to Brazil to sign a memorandum of understanding on rare earths. Three days before his flight he found he’d been beaten to the punch. The U.S., he told Dutch newspaper NRC, had done a deal with a local miner and purchased all of its production through 2030.   

The European Commission didn’t confirm the identity of the miner Séjourné mentioned, but the U.S. Development Finance Corporation has announced $565 million in financing to expand Serra Verde’s Pela Ema rare earths mine in Brazil.

That’s just one in a string of similar deals.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank last October announced $2.2 billion in potential investment in critical minerals projects in Australia. In November, U.S. firm Cove Capital entered into a joint venture with Kazakhstan’s Tau-Ken Samruk for a tungsten mine — again with U.S. government backing.

Congolese state miner Gécamines then said it would ship 100,000 metric tons of copper to the U.S. market, based on a minerals partnership agreement signed between the two countries. 

Speaking to POLITICO after the Munich Security Conference last month, DRC Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said Europe was welcome to participate in her country’s resources — but had yet to fully engage.

Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said Europe was welcome to participate in her country’s resources. | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

“We’re happy to work with different partners, different investors, including the European Union. So, the fact that we have signed an agreement with the U.S. doesn’t mean that it’s only going to be the U.S. and no one else,” Kayikwamba Wagner said.

But “we have yet to see massive mobilization from the European Union ... as we’ve seen from other countries.” She added the EU “is still beyond the U.S. and China.”  

Show me the money

There is also a financial disparity. The Trump administration’s $12 billion critical minerals stockpiling initiative dwarfs the EU’s €3 billion plan. 

“The Americans are moving at a pace that they know the others cannot keep up with,” said Stefan Müller, CEO of DGWA, a Frankfurt-based investment and consulting firm that specializes in commodities. “We have to ask ourselves who will ultimately have the say in such a partnership.”

A recent report from the European Court of Auditors found that the EU’s efforts to diversify imports of critical raw materials had “yet to produce tangible results.”

McGarry, the European Commission spokesperson, defended the EU’s progress, pointing to the 15 MoUs the bloc has signed with international partners. Brussels has also designated 67 mining projects as strategic, allowing them to benefit from faster permitting and opening access to institutional backing. 

German EU lawmaker Hildegard Bentele said the U.S. had “increased the pace a lot” and “showed how serious they were.” The EU’s strategy of state-to-state negotiations, by contrast, wasn’t producing results on the ground.  

“The Americans won’t take us seriously anymore if we do not put money on the table,” said the center-right MEP, who anchored a European Parliament strategy report on critical raw materials. 

She flagged a push to earmark between €5 billion and €10 billion for critical minerals in the next EU budget, which she hailed as a “huge step forward.” But given the pace at which the U.S. is moving, and the fact that the EU's next budget won’t be launched until 2028, the bloc will need to find money to bridge the gap. 

“We need something in between,” she added.