Trump, Australia's Albanese sign critical minerals agreement

One aspect of this "deal" that I saw reported ...

China supplies the US with refined rare-earth minerals. This deal with Australia is for unrefined raw minerals.

Indeed, Australia supplies the China refineries with rare-earth ore to be refined by China.

Stated differently, China's negotiating point seems to be that they can supply vast qualtities refine rare-earth minerals (about 70% of the world's supply, from what I've seen), and no one else can match that supply.

... The enormous proportions of rare-earth metals used in making these warships is due to the technological complexity of modern subsystems

Building one Arleigh Burke"class destroyer takes as much as 2.3 tons of rare earth metals, and a Virginia-class nuclear submarine needs 4 tons, according to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank.

This substantial amount of rare earth minerals required for construction of both ships is precisely because of how sophisticated their onboard systems are, the experts note in the context of a larger analysis of the role critical raw materials play in the Western defense industry. ...

[emphasis mine]

Related ...

Auto companies 'in full panic' over rare-earths bottleneck (June 2025)

... Frank Eckard, CEO of a German magnet maker, has been fielding a flood of calls in recent weeks.
Exasperated automakers and parts suppliers have been desperate to find alternative sources of magnets, which are in short supply due to Chinese export curbs.

Some told Eckard their factories could be idled by mid-July without backup magnet supplies. "The whole car industry is in full panic," said Eckard, CEO of Magnosphere, based in Troisdorf, Germany. "They are willing to pay any price."

Car executives have once again been driven into their war rooms, concerned that China's tight export controls on rare-earth magnets -- crucially needed to make cars -- could cripple production. U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to let rare earths minerals and magnets flow to the United States.

A U.S. trade team is scheduled to meet Chinese counterparts for talks in London on Monday.

The industry worries that the rare-earths situation could cascade into the third massive supply chain shock in five years. A semiconductor shortage wiped away millions of cars from automakers' production plans, from roughly 2021 to 2023. Before that, the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 shut factories for weeks. ...

@#7 ... U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to let rare earths minerals and magnets flow to the United States. ...

Pres Trump has said that previously.

To wit ...

Trump says China's Xi agreed to let rare earth minerals flow to US (June 2025)
www.reuters.com

Yet, here we are ...