RE: Bidding War, USA vs China (companies and Governments)17 Feb 2026 12:18
USA vs China.
"China’s Critical Minerals Strategy in Africa"
"China now controls over half of global critical minerals production and an estimated 87 percent of processing and refining. China also produces nearly 70 percent of rare earth minerals, manufactures 93 percent of high-strength rare earth permanent magnets, and is responsible for 95 percent of the necessary heavy processing of critical minerals."
"While China’s critical minerals strategy has emphasized its processing and refining capabilities, Beijing has diversified upstream by acquiring major African mining assets, including Botswana’s Khoemacau copper mine (2023), Mali’s Goulamina lithium mine (2024), and Tanzania’s Ngualla rare earth mine (2025). Illustratively, the world’s largest EV maker, the Chinese company BYD, secured six African lithium mines, ensuring sufficient feedstock (or raw materials) through 2032."
https://africacenter.org/spotlight/china-africa-critical-minerals/
USA
"The announcement by the US vice-president, JD Vance, that the country is seeking to create a new critical minerals “trading bloc” is a final, exotic, nail in the coffin of the old global trading system. The era of mass abundance, as supplied by unfettered free trade and global markets – “neoliberalism” – is over. We live in a new world of strategic competition between states over scarce but essential resources."
"If, for example, you want to build electric vehicles on a massive scale, you need batteries. And batteries, with current technologies, need lithium. World Bank projections suggest that global production of lithium must rise by 450% by 2050 to match projected demand."
"State ownership has become fashionable in the land of free enterprise: the US took equity stakes in five mining and refining companies last summer, concentrated in critical minerals, and is arranging the government-backed buyout of 40% of Glencore’s cobalt-copper mines in DRC."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/16/critical-minerals-shortages-jd-vance-trading-bloc-analysis