The new agreement between the United States and Australia to jointly invest in rare earths and other critical minerals marks a decisive shift in the geopolitics of resource control. It is not just an economic partnership but a strategic manoeuvre designed to blunt China’s dominance over materials that power modern industry and warfare. For Washington, this deal extends its industrial policy into the Indo-Pacific.

For Canberra, it offers both security and leverage as it navigates between its largest trading partner and its closest defence ally. China’s control over roughly 70 per cent of global rare earths mining and nearly 90 per cent of their processing has long given it quiet but formidable influence over global manufacturing chains. These elements are the invisible backbone of today’s technology, from semiconductors and batteries to advanced weapons systems. The West’s dependence on Chinese processing capacity has, therefore, become an Achilles’ heel, one that Beijing has........

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