Trump, Australian PM Albanese sign critical minerals agreement, discuss submarine deal

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a rare earths and critical minerals agreement on Monday aimed at ensuring a steady supply of the materials as China tries to tighten control over global supply.

China loomed large at the first White House summit between Trump and Albanese, with the U.S. president backing a strategic nuclear-powered submarine deal with Australia aimed at countering Beijing's ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.

The two leaders opened their talks in the Cabinet Room by announcing they would sign a rare earths deal that Trump said had been negotiated in recent months. Albanese described it as an $8.5 billion pipeline "that we have ready to go."

A copy of the agreement, provided by the prime minister's office, said the two countries will each invest $1 billion over the next six months into mining and processing projects, as well as set a minimum price floor for critical minerals, a move that Western miners have long sought.

“In about a year from now, we'll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won't know what to do with them,” Trump told reporters.

The United States has been looking for access to rare earths and critical minerals around the world as China takes steps to strengthen control over global supply. Trade tensions between the United States and China have escalated ahead of Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea next week.

China has the world's largest rare earths reserves, according to U.S. Geological Survey data, but Australia also has significant reserves. The materials are used for products ranging from electric vehicles to aircraft engines and military radars.

While Trump and Albanese greeted each other warmly, there was an awkward moment when Trump was asked by reporters about past comments critical of Trump made by Australia's ambassador to the U.S., Kevin Rudd, which Rudd has since deleted.

Trump said he was not aware of the comments and asked where the envoy was now. Upon seeing him across the table, Trump said, “I don’t like you either - and I probably never will.”

TRUMP SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR SUBMARINE DEAL

Albanese got welcome support from Trump for the A$368 billion($239.46 billion) AUKUS agreement, reached in 2023 under then-President Joe Biden. Under the deal Australia is to buy U.S. nuclear-powered submarines in 2032 before building a new submarine class with Britain.

While Trump has been eager to roll back Biden-era policies, he signaled his intent to back the AUKUS submarine agreement, months after his team launched a review of the deal over concerns about the ability of United States to meet its own submarine needs.

Navy Secretary John Phelan told the meeting the United States and Australia were working closely to improve the original AUKUS framework for all three parties "and clarify some of the ambiguity that was in the prior agreement."

Trump said these were "just minor details," adding "there shouldn't be any more clarifications, because we're just, we're just going now full steam ahead, building."

Ahead of Monday's meeting, Australian officials emphasized Canberra is paying its way under AUKUS, contributing $2 billion this year to boost production rates at U.S. submarine shipyards, and preparing to maintain U.S. Virginia-class submarines at its Indian Ocean naval base from 2027.

The delay of 10 months in an official meeting since Trump took office had caused some anxiety in Australia as the Pentagon urged Canberra to lift defense spending. The two leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month.

The rare earths agreement came a week after U.S. officials condemned Beijing's expansion of rare earth export controls as a threat to global supply chains.

Resource-rich Australia, wanting to extract and process rare earths, put preferential access to its strategic reserve on the table in U.S. trade negotiations in April.

As part of the rare earths agreement, Trump and Albanese agreed to cut permitting for mines, processing facilities and related operations in order to boost production.

The deal called for cooperation on the mapping of geological resources, minerals recycling and efforts to stop the sale of critical minerals assets “on national security grounds."

This was an oblique reference to China, which has bought major mining assets across the planet in the past decade, including the world’s largest cobalt mine in Congo, from U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan.

© Thomson Reuters 2025.