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International Media Resource Articles

Trump says US gets rare earth minerals from China and tariffs on Chinese goods will total 55% – by DARLENE SUPERVILLE, JOSH BOAK, PAUL WISEMAN and DIDI TANG (Associated Press – June 11, 2025)

https://apnews.com/

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that China will make it easier for American industry to obtain much-needed needed magnets and rare earth minerals, clearing the way for talks to continue between the world’s two biggest economies. In return, Trump said, the U.S. will stop efforts to revoke the visas of Chinese nationals on U.S. college campuses.

Trump’s comment on social media came after two days of high-level U.S.-China trade talks in London. Details remain scarce. Trump didn’t fully spell out what concessions the U.S. made. Beijing has not confirmed what the negotiators agreed to, and Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump himself have yet to sign off on it.

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Indonesia’s “Amazon of the Seas” threatened by EV nickel rush (Global Witness – June 12, 2025)

https://globalwitness.org/en/

Nickel mining has been expanding in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat, fuelled by the world’s demand for EV batteries – but Indigenous communities are campaigning to protect their home and its critical ecosystem

He hangs in the clear water, studying the blue below. Then he tilts his body forward, reaching down and kicking steadily, long spear before him. Soon, his white fins are just faint flicking shapes in the deep. Lindert Mambrasar, freediver and fisherman, does this again and again. An hour later, one glistening fish and then two are pulled off the tip of his spear by his friends waiting in the boat. It is more than enough for supper tonight.

Here, close to the shore of the island of Manyaifun and its sister island Batang Pele in the Raja Ampat archipelago, West Papua, the water is clean and the fish easy to spot. These thriving reefs have been called the “crown jewel” of the Coral Triangle – the name scientists have given this area of Southeast Asian seas that sustain the richest marine ecosystem in the world.

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Smuggled Out of France During a Bloody Revolution, Marie Antoinette’s Shimmering Pink Diamond Is Heading to Auction – by Eli Wizevich (Smithsonian Magazine – June 9, 2025)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/

The 10.38-carat gemstone, which carries an estimate of $3 million to $5 million, was owned by generations of European royalty

On the night of June 20, 1791, as the French Revolution raged in Paris, the French royal family donned disguises and started an ill-fated escape eastward toward Montmédy, where they expected to find protection among royalist troops.

Instead, they were recognized and arrested in the small town of Varennes-en-Argonne, roughly 30 miles from their destination. Revolutionaries hauled them back to Paris and confined them in the Tuileries Palace under armed guard.

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Barrick Mining removes Mali gold complex from 2025 output forecast, sources say – by Divya Rajagopal and Portia Crowe (BNN Bloomberg/Reuters – June 12, 2025)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

TORONTO/DAKAR — Barrick Mining has removed its Mali gold complex from its overall output forecast for 2025, four sources told Reuters, adding to fallout from a two-year dispute over new mining legislation aimed at boosting the West African country’s revenue.

Operations at the Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex, one of the Canadian miner’s largest gold assets in Africa, have been suspended since January after the military-led government blocked gold exports by the world’s third-largest miner of the precious metal, detained staff and seized three metric tons of stock during separate negotiations over a new mining contract with Barrick.

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Lab-Grown Diamonds are Upending the Market, but Natural Gems Still Reign in Beverly Hills – by Clara Harter (Beverly Hills Courier – June 10, 2025)

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Lab-grown diamonds, once dismissed as subpar yellowish stones, are now practically impossible to distinguish from their natural counterparts by look alone. And as more buyers are drawn to their affordability and eco-conscious appeal, synthetic stones are upending a market long defined by tradition and exclusivity.

Last year, 52% of American newlyweds used an engagement ring with a lab-grown stone compared to just 12% in 2019, according to an annual survey by The Knot. This boom in popularity has hit the natural diamond market hard. The price of mined stones has dropped around 26% since 2022, according to jewelry data analytics firm Tenoris. In 2024, De Beers, the biggest name in the natural diamond business, reported a 23% year-over-year decrease in revenue driven by a loss in demand for mined stones.

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China arms itself for more export control battles – by Edward White and Joe Leahy (Financial Times – June 8, 2025)

https://www.ft.com/

Beijing’s success in snarling supply chains with rare earths has shifted the balance of power in trade talks

China’s success in snarling global supply chains by stemming the flow of rare earths has piled pressure on Washington and made clear Beijing’s power to weaponise export controls on a wider range of critical goods, analysts and businesspeople say.

China dominates the supply chain for key minerals and its commerce ministry started requiring licences for exports of rare earths and related magnets in early April. The slow approval process has rocked global supply chains and given Beijing leverage over the US after Donald Trump’s sweeping “liberation day” tariffs.

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Clock Ticks as U.S. and China Try to Undo Devastating Trade Curbs – by Ana Swanson (New York Times – June 10, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Officials from the world’s largest economies will try to strike a deal Tuesday to relax painful export restrictions that they have imposed on each other.

If the United States and China have succeeded at one thing this year, it is finding each other’s pain points. An initial clash over tariffs has grown in recent months into a competition over which country can weaponize its control over the other’s supply chains.

China has clamped down on global shipments of rare minerals that are essential to building cars, missiles and a host of electronic products. The United States has in turn paused shipments to China of chemicals, machinery and technology including software and components to produce nuclear power, airplanes and semiconductors. As the conflict has escalated in recent weeks, it has caused Ford Motor and other companies to suspend some of their operations.

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Column: US aluminum tariffs threaten scrap clash with European Union – by Andy Home (Reuters – June 9, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

US President Donald Trump’s move to double tariffs on aluminum imports heightens the risk of a full-blown scrap war with the European Union. Although they are supposed to be blanket tariffs with no exceptions or exemptions, there is one significant gap in the tariff wall.

Aluminum scrap is explicitly excluded on the grounds it constitutes a key raw material for US manufacturers. The Trump administration’s decision to lift aluminum tariffs to 25% effective the start of March has already caused US imports of recyclable material to rise.

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The Brilliance of Botswana Diamonds – by Shelley Brown (Natural Diamonds – May 29, 2025)

https://www.naturaldiamonds.com/

Discover how the natural diamond industry helped transform the now thriving Southern African country with brilliant Botswana diamonds.

Botswana, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, is both the birthplace of modern humans over 200,000 years ago and brilliant diamonds billions of years before that. The discovery of the first significant deposit of diamonds in Botswana happened in 1967, just one year after the country gained independence from Britain.

At that time, it was the third poorest country in the world, with minimal infrastructure and an almost total void of formal education. The country’s founding president, Sir Seretse Khama, made it his mission to build a government with an ambitious economic development program centered around the country’s resources.

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How this new technology could change the way we mine copper – by Liz Dennett (Fast Company – June 4, 2025)

https://www.fastcompany.com/

Mining isn’t known for innovation. For more than a century, we’ve extracted copper using the same process: dig, crush, grind, leach, repeat. Meanwhile, demand has exploded, fueled by EVs, AI infrastructure, and the energy transition. That mismatch has created a bottleneck. We’re using yesterday’s tools to power tomorrow’s economy.

The conductive highway

Copper is the metal that moves energy. Literally, electrons don’t travel from solar panels to batteries—or from your laptop charger to the cloud—without it. Copper is the conductive highway that keeps the world’s electrons flowing. It’s in every EV, every wind turbine, and every data center.

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What to Know About China’s Halt of Rare Earth Exports – by Keith Bradsher (New York Times – June 3, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Since early April, China has stopped almost all shipments of critical minerals that are needed for cars, robots, wind turbines, jet fighters and other technologies.

China has suspended almost all exports since April 4 of seven kinds of rare earth metals, as well as very powerful magnets made from three of them. The halt has caused increasingly severe shortages that threaten to close many factories in the United States and Europe. Why are these metals so needed, why has China stopped exporting them and, crucially, what happens next?

What are rare earths?

There are 17 types of metals known as rare earths, which are found near the bottom of the periodic table. Most of them are not actually very rare — they are all over the world, though seldom in large enough ore deposits to be mined efficiently.

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Nationalisation, Sovereignty and Geopolitical Realignment in African Mineral Extraction: The case of West Africa – by Elio Brando (Italian Institue for International Political Studies – June 5, 2025)

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The global resource market is experiencing a sustained surge in demand for crucial minerals, such as gold, lithium, silver, bauxite, uranium, and cobalt. Two key forces are driving this trend: rising geopolitical and economic uncertainties, which are channelling increased investment in hard commodities, and the accelerating technological transition, which demands a significant expansion of mineral production and refinery.

Africa is bound to be deeply affected by current developments. The continent holds approximately 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, with individual nations possessing significant shares of specific resources. The global interest in precious minerals (such as gold, platinum, and silver) is paired by a rising demand for critical minerals such as lithium, graphite, cobalt, manganese, and bauxite.

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Coal miners backed Trump. He’s dismantled their safety net – by Bob Ortega, Curt Devine, Kyung Lah and Casey Tolan (CNN.com – June 4, 2025)

https://www.cnn.com/

OAK HILL, WEST VIRGINIA – After decades of mining coal deep below the mountains of West Virginia, David Bounds now struggles to carry a gallon of milk to the breakfast table without gasping for breath. The black lung disease that forced him to retire eventually may kill him, Bounds believes.

He’s proud of being a coal miner. But he doesn’t want anyone else to face his fate – or the myriad other dangers miners confront on the job. “It’s getting worse, and worse, and worse as I go along. I don’t want to see nobody in that shape, if it can be prevented,” he told CNN.

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Rio Tinto bets lithium will retain its battery metal crown – by Andy Home (Reuters – June 3, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – It’s a tough time to be a lithium producer as the light metal sinks under the weight of excess supply. Lithium hydroxide prices have collapsed by 90% from their 2022 peak and show no signs of recovery.

Multiple producers are now operating at zero or negative margins, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Even giants like Albemarle, the world’s largest producer of the battery metal, have been cutting costs and deferring new projects to weather the supply storm. Rio Tinto, however, is undaunted. The global mining house remains “consistent in its belief in the long-term outlook for lithium”.

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Innovation comes to tailings management – by Heidi Vella (Mining Technology – June 2, 2025)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

In the wake of several major tailings dam disasters, new technology is emerging to help miners manage waste more safely and sustainably.

Today, it is impossible to talk of mine tailings – the unfortunate but unavoidable legacy of mining – and not think of the Brumadinho dam disaster in Brazil, which, in 2019, claimed 259 lives. Aidan Davy, co-COO of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) called it a “stark wake-up call”, adding that it “marked the beginning of a vital journey to make these facilities safer for people and the environment”.

That journey should not only focus on strong governance but also the implementation of “good engineering practices” for tailings management across the life cycle, the ICMM noted in its latest updated guidance, published in February.

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