Highlights
- Johns Hopkins professor Bentley B. Allan proposes a North American ‘critical minerals club’ to reduce dependency on China and stabilize supply chains.
- The proposal lacks urgency and fails to provide an immediate solution to China’s market manipulation of rare earth and critical mineral pricing.
- Recommended alternative strategies includes:
- Appointing a U.S. Critical Minerals Czar
- Negotiating short-term stability deals
- Implementing aggressive industrial policy
Bentley B. Allan (opens in a new tab), an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, presents an ambitious proposal in his latest research piece, Establishing a Critical Minerals Club Across North America, (opens in a new tab) published by Brookings Institution’s USMCA Forward 2025 Initiative (opens in a new tab). The core argument of his paper is that the U.S., Canada, and Mexico should form a “critical minerals club” to harmonize tariffs, create price stability, and develop cooperative investment strategies to counter China’s dominance in rare earths and critical minerals processing.
While Allan recognizes the structural limitations of reshoring mining and processing—such as potential lack of domestic deposits (although Canada, USA, and Mexico should have a lot of material), limited metallurgical expertise, and volatile market conditions—his policy prescriptions are incremental at best and detached from industrial realities at worst. His call for a multilateral approach under the USMCA framework lacks the urgency, strategic force, and executive power required to address America’s immediate rare earth crisis.
The Core Premise – A Club for Stability?
Allan’s hypothesis is simple: North America should form a coalition to de-risk critical mineral supply chains by securing demand through subsidies, joint procurement, and price insurance mechanisms. His paper argues that this will:
- Reduce dependency on China by jointly investing in mining and refining projects.
- Align industrial policies across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico through shared subsidies and trade restrictions.
- Encourage investment by stabilizing commodity pricing with price floors and co-investment strategies.
While theoretically sound, his vision underestimates China’s grip on the global supply chain and fails to provide a viable short-term strategy to stabilize the market.
The Author’s Blind Spots
Rare Earth Exchanges suggests that while well-intentioned, the author works with blind spots. What are these zones of darkness? First the reality of China’s market dominance. While Allan acknowledges that China’s state-controlled enterprises can afford to operate at lower profit margins and subsidize prices across the supply chain, yet he does not propose a serious countermeasure to China’s ability to flood the market and undercut competitors.
| Assumption/Blind Spot | Realities |
|---|---|
| A North American club will stop China from manipulating rare earth pricing to undercut Western mining projects. | A “North American club” will not stop China from manipulating rare earth pricing to undercut Western mining projects before they reach profitability. Without immediate direct government intervention, such as stockpiling, price controls, and strict industrial policy, not to mention support of funding of refinery and value-added production initiatives, Western producers will remain vulnerable to market sabotage. |
| The Absence of a rare earth and critical minerals Czar | The U.S. needs a centralized industrial strategy led by a mineral Czar—a single office with sweeping authority to coordinate mining, processing, trade policy, and manufacturing incentives. Instead, Allan suggests a slow-moving, bureaucratic multilateral approach that will be bogged down by Mexico’s political ambivalence and Canada’s regulatory overreach. Without a single command structure, U.S. critical mineral policy will continue to be fragmented, reactionary, and ineffective against China’s state-backed supply chain dominance. |
| No Immediate Action Plan for Price Stability | The paper fails to propose an immediate solution to stabilize rare earth pricing in the short term.. China has repeatedly weaponized export restrictions on gallium, germanium, and graphite. The most practical move in the short run is for Trump to engage China in a temporary trade deal—locking in rare earth pricing and supply security for 5 to 10 years while the U.S. builds out its domestic processing infrastructure |
Allan’s idealistic vision of North American self-sufficiency ignores market realities. The U.S. cannot afford to wait for a slow, uncertain policy shift under USMCA while China maintains its monopoly on refining and magnet production.
Key Areas of Contention
What Allan Gets Right
- Recognizes that price volatility discourages Western investment.
- Acknowledges that China’s industrial policy distorts global market prices.
- Calls for a long-term coordinated North American strategy.
What Allan Misses or Downplays
- There is an urgent need for Trump to negotiate a short-term stability deal with China.
- The necessity of an industrial Czar to enforce and execute a national mineral policy.
- Past U.S. industrial policies failed to scale rare earth processing due to EPA overregulation, funding gaps, and a lack of a centralized supply chain mandate.
- China’s ability to retaliate economically renders slow policy responses ineffective.
The Rare Earth Exchanges Proposal: A More Aggressive Approach
- Short-Term: Lock in a Stability Deal with China
- President Trump travels to China negotiates a 5-10 year trade agreement to ensure rare earth supply stability while the U.S. builds its own capacity. Trump is uniquely suited to pull this off. He has already gone on the record that he wants Chinese investment in U.S. and U.S. investment in China and we completely agree.
- It prevents China from flooding the market and undercutting Western projects before they become viable.
- Short-Term Appoint a U.S. Critical Minerals Czar
- A single executive office with authority over mining incentives, processing subsidies, and defense procurement.
- Streamline environmental approvals for domestic mining and refining projects.
- Execute on regulatory streamlining.
- Establish a REEx and Critical Minerals resilience network (e.g., Canada, Australia, etc.)
- Government support of key players (competitive bids) plus the support of disruptive forces (e.g., recycling, rare earth element-free magnets, etc.)
- Mid-Term to Long-Term: Aggressive Industrial Policy & Supply Chain Protection
- Mandate U.S. stockpiling of key materials to counter price manipulation.
- Force defense contractors to source from U.S. or ally-controlled supply chains over time—this must be done correctly.
- Establish electronic marketplaces for rare earth elements and critical minerals (Rare Earth Exchanges is designing a blockchain-based platform today!).
- Strategic tariffs are needed as supply chain resilience emerges over the next decade.
- Nurture disruptive market forces (technologies and methods above)
Final Verdict – A Scholarly Exercise in Delay
Bentley B. Allan’s paper is an academic exercise in slow-moving policy alignment—not the aggressive action needed to win the rare earths war. His “club” idea is well-intentioned but insufficient, as it does not directly challenge China’s ability to manipulate global pricing, restrict exports, or outcompete Western producers with subsidized operations.
The reality is America needs decisive leadership, not a drawn-out, bureaucratic framework that assumes market forces will self-correct. Trump should engage China immediately to secure pricing stability while aggressively ramping up domestic capabilities through a mineral Czar and robust industrial policy. The race for rare earth dominance will not be won through diplomatic clubs—it will be won through strategic, government-led action and market power projection, and ultimately, market forces once we overcome the Chinese state-owned.
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