Highlights

• Global competition for critical minerals is reshaping economic and geopolitical landscapes, with nations strategically repositioning their resource strategies.
• Industrial espionage, export restrictions, and strategic partnerships are becoming central to the critical minerals race, particularly between Western nations and China.
• Supply chains are now being determined by intelligence briefings, treaty negotiations, and trade dynamics, not just traditional market forces.

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What does the high-stakes critical minerals race look like in 2025? From price floors in Washington to fusion power in Washington State, a recent Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) piece (opens in a new tab) attempts to connect every node in today’s geopolitically electrified resource web. The core assertion—that competition for critical minerals is reshaping global alliances, economics, and security—is well-supported, timely, and urgent.

What Holds Up?

The reporting on U.S. price support policies and national security framing around rare earths is consistent with documented Trump administration directives and DoD-backed subsidies for domestic magnet manufacturing. The participation of tech giants like Apple and Microsoft in rare earth discussions has been confirmed through public White House briefings.

The discussion on industrial espionage, citing Australia’s Mike Burgess, is similarly credible. The data aligns with public warnings from intelligence agencies in Australia, the U.S., and the U.K. that critical minerals R&D is now a cyber and espionage target.

On market mechanics, China’s export restriction trends and Brazil’s resource nationalism both check out. The report’s figures on June rare earth shipments and Brazil’s new strategic commission to oversee mineral flows are in line with recent customs and government statements.

Speculative Slips

The eyebrow-raising claim that the U.S. is “entertaining” deals with Myanmar’s ruling junta and rebel militias like the Kachin Independence Army crosses into murky waters.  Reuters first reported on this, and the global news agency was actually in touch with Rare Earth Exchanges concerning the REEx Heavy Rare Earth Element (HREE) Project/Deposit Rankings, with Myanmar Rebels at the top of the list.

While it's plausible that informal discussions or think tank proposals exist, no credible public documentation confirms that U.S. officials are seriously pursuing such legally and ethically fraught supply deals.

Discovery Alert picked up the piece as well from Reuters.

Similarly, while the notion of Tesla's “friendshoring” supply chains is real, the framing of its LG and Samsung deals as clean geopolitical decoupling simplifies complex multinational supply webs. These arrangements are as much about tariffs and subsidies as they are about ideology.

This is narrative-driven journalism with a clear Western security lens—China is framed as the rival, and Western moves are positioned as reactions or catch-up plays, which, of course, has a lot of truth.  There’s some nationalist framing baked in (“weaponization,” “espionage,” “unthinkable options”), but not enough to discredit the reporting. Overall, the article elevates awareness without straying into fear-mongering.

Bottom Line: Strategic Reality Check

This is not a drill. The critical minerals race isn’t just heating up—it’s institutionalizing. For investors, manufacturers, and policymakers, the implications are clear: supply chains are being redrawn not by markets alone, but by intelligence briefings, treaty tables, and trade wars.