Chile and US eye collaboration on critical minerals and rare earths
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Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and second-largest lithium producer.
PHOTO: REUTERS
SANTIAGO - Chile and the US have signed a joint statement to begin discussions on critical minerals and rare earths, Chile’s Foreign Ministry said on March 12.
The first meeting will take place within the next two weeks, it added.
Areas of potential coordination include public and private financing for mining projects, management of scrap for minerals recycling, and exploration for new projects that could help boost minerals supplies in both countries.
The Trump administration has been pushing to reduce reliance on China for critical minerals and rare earths, which are used in electric vehicles, semiconductors, defence systems and consumer electronics.
Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and second-largest lithium producer.
“I believe there is much we can do with the United States and Chile to strengthen the supply chains of these minerals,” US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told journalists in Chile, where right-wing Jose Antonio Kast was sworn in as president on March 11.
“We will discuss how we can work together.”
Mr Landau, who previously served as US ambassador to Mexico, signed the agreement with Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Perez Mackenna in a ceremony in Santiago overseen by Mr Kast.
Albemarle, an American chemicals company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, has produced lithium in Chile’s northern Atacama region for more than 50 years, operations that have made it the world’s largest producer of that battery metal.
Albemarle was not immediately available to comment on the partnership between the two countries.
EnergyX, a Puerto Rico-based lithium technology start-up backed by General Motors, aims to build a US$1.1 billion (S$1.4 billion) lithium facility in Chile that is slated to come online in 2028 and eventually produce 50,000 tonnes a year.
“This is a good first step on Kast’s first day in office to sign something of a framework agreement with the US,” said Mr Teague Egan, chief executive of EnergyX, who met Mr Kast at US President Donald Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” summit on March 7 in Miami. REUTERS
