Over the past three years, as the US has increasingly restricted technology transfers or raised tariffs on China, Beijing has responded by increasing economic pressure on the US defense-industrial base. China has significant leverage in this regard, namely its global dominance in the extraction and processing of rare earth metals (REM). For example, this was the case on April 4, 2025, which occurred in response to the US “Liberation Day” tariffs. The United States is looking for ways to protect itself from Chinese dominance.
At the end of February 2025, Russia offered US President Donald Trump its own agreement on the extraction of rare earth metals, including in the occupied Ukrainian territories. This proposal arose against the backdrop of the signing of a mineral agreement between Ukraine and the US. According to Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation has much larger deposits of rare earth metals. He also stated that Russia is ready to implement joint projects with the United States on aluminum mining in Krasnoyarsk, in particular, it was promised to provide the American market with 2 million tons of this metal. Despite the fact that Russia is rich in minerals, it cannot catch up with China in the field of rare earth metals.
Read more about this in the new research "Is Russia capable of creating an alternative to China in the field of rare earth metals" by Yanina Chaykivskaya, an international journalist, an associated expert of the East Asia Bureau of the CGS Strategy XXI.