WASHINGTON, February 4. /TASS/. China is taking steps to maintain the stability of global supply chains and expects the same from the US, Chinese Embassy in Washington told TASS commenting on the US initiative to hold a ministerial-level conference on trade in critical minerals.
"China has long played an important and constructive role in keeping the global industrial and supply chains of critical minerals safe and stable and is willing to continue to make active efforts in this regard. We look forward to the United States working with China in the same direction," the diplomatic mission said.
Meanwhile, American media and experts note that the conference in Washington was convened by the US primarily as part of its efforts to counter China and its trade disputes with it.
"So part of what began earlier this year, when we understood the importance of supply chains and said, the United States, we can’t put ourselves in a position — ourselves, the free world, the Western world — where one country could, you know, shut off, say, something as simple as magnets, which represented a small dollar amount but they would have shut down every automobile plant in the world. We’re saying, that’s not acceptable. One of the responses to that, one of the innovations in regards to that, has been what is informally called the club of nations, but all the bilaterals that the United States is signing," US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Tuesday, delivering a speech before the opening of the conference.
He said that after the forum, the United States plans to announce the signing of 11 more critical mineral purchase and sale agreements. Washington has already concluded five such agreements, Burgum recalled.
"We have plans to announce as many as 11 more of those agreements this week <…>. We know that there is strong interest from another 20 countries," the Interior Secretary noted.
As he explained, the US was seeking to create a bloc with like-minded countries to have duty-free trade and exchanges of critical rare earth elements. The agreements will, in some cases, set a price floor for raw materials to attract long-term capital and prevent predatory trade practices, Burgum said. He added that the US is seeking to prevent, for example, countries dominant in a critical mineral processing sector from being able, if they deem it necessary, to flood the market with certain raw materials and thereby effectively destroy the economic value of a particular company or production in a particular country.
The Department of the Interior is not a law enforcement agency in the United States. It primarily deals with issues of federal land use and natural resource extraction, and also oversees various programs related to American Indians, native Alaskans and Hawaiians.