Critical mineral trends 2026: The return of multilateralism
2025 saw great leaps in international, and particularly US, critical mineral supply chain security and reindustrialisation, but 2026 is only accelerating these trends – with a renewed and welcome focus upon multilaterism.
The expansion of Chinese REE controls in April 2025 – with the threat of these being widened yet further in October – reset the geopolitical and geoeconomic order as the Chinese government militarised REEs and critical minerals, with the US and the wider West in clear line of sight. 90% of midstream processing is in China. The US imports 74% of its REEs from China – REEs that are central to advanced manufacturing sectors: semiconductors, AI, defence, hypersonics, aerospace, space, clean energy, and more – a vulnerability that is driving both home-shoring and increasingly friend-shoring of entire sector-specific critical mineral supply chains.
In early February, Washington hosted the 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial where representatives from 54 countries convened to address a market that is ‘a tool of political coercion’ and explore ways to ‘build new sources of supply, foster secure and reliable transport and logistics networks, and transform the global market into one that is secure, diversified, and resilient, end-to-end’.
In a clear sign of a renewed focus on a multilateral approach the US signed 11 new bilateral critical mineral frameworks – building on the 10 signed in the previous five months and another 17 in the pipeline.
The Ministerial also saw the formation of the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE) – the successor to the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) – encouraging allied nations to collaborate on supply chains, industrial production, and investment – differentiated from its predecessor by its more assertive agenda and faster tempo.
Early February also saw the announcement of Project Vault – a US$10 billion government US$2 billion private funding initiative to stockpile critical materials, supporting domestic manufacturers and strengthening supply chain security.
Designed for companies across the semiconductor supply chain, Pax Silica emerged in December 2025 and is one of the most exciting interventions to date. This US-led international economic security partnership is to secure and diversify AI and semiconductor supply chains – and to shut-out China’s influence. Pax Silica’s two foci have been enunciated by ex-Palantir, now Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs at the State Department, Jacob Helberg as:
- Policy – securing key infrastructure and end-tech outside of ‘coercive dependencies’.
- Projects – building up logistics and building out industrial capacity:
- Pursue projects to jointly address AI supply chain opportunities and vulnerabilities in: priority critical minerals, semiconductor design, fabrication and packaging, logistics and transportation, compute, and energy grids and power generation.
- Pursue new joint ventures and strategic co-investment opportunities.
- Protect sensitive technologies and critical infrastructure from undue access or control by countries of concern.
Under Secretary Helberg stresses multilateralism: the US must cooperate with friendly countries with industrial processing capability.
Metalysis, a UK-based midstream asset capable of processing 49 elements of the periodic table, welcomes these further moves to strengthen the US and Western industrial base – and to build international partnerships. Metalysis produces an aluminium scandium alloy at 36 wt% scandium – which is finding a growing market in the critical semiconductor and MEMs supply chain. I am excited to see what else 2026 delivers.
