Italy adopted measures Thursday aimed at ramping up domestic sourcing and processing of critical raw materials, as part of an EU strategy to compete with China on green technologies…The cabinet passed a decree simplifying procedures for mining permits, as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government seeks to tap into essential minerals from lithium to cobalt…The extraction, processing and recycling of these materials are "urgent", and the decree brings Italy into line with the European Union's new Critical Raw Materials Act, Industry Minister Adolfo Urso told a press conference…Italy believes it possesses reserves of at least 15 of the 34 raw materials considered critical by the EU, but many are in mines that closed decades ago, as they were unprofitable at the time, Urso said…According to ISPRA, Italy's environment agency, potential minerals for extraction include lithium near Rome, lead and zinc in Lombardy, cobalt in Piedmont, titanium in Liguria, and ores in Sicily and Sardinia…China currently dominates in many sectors including semiconductors, critical minerals, batteries and solar panels.

Businesses from the U.S., Japan and Europe are moving to tap mineral reserves in Central Africa, using the latest technologies to locate critical electric vehicle materials, as China currently dominates development on the continent…The so-called Copperbelt spans across the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and is one of the world's leading mining regions. Copper and cobalt, also found in the region, are used to make EV batteries…Amid protracted tensions between Washington and Beijing, the U.S., Europe and Japan worry about the economic security risks posed by China's dominance in the field…The Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) conducts satellite image analysis, and plans to expand the area covered by its geological surveys. It will work together with the U.K., which recently agreed to promote public-private investment in Zambia…JOGMEC will also work closely with the DRC, promoting environmental, social and governance investments in the country in response to international criticism over the use of child labor in its mines…The U.S. and European Union are jointly backing the development of the Lobito Corridor, a rail link connecting Zambia and the DRC to Angola's Lobito Port. In addition to updating existing facilities, the initiative will build a new rail section and expand transportation capacity…Japan signaled its support for the project as well during an April summit with the U.S.

At a highly secure Canberra building near Parliament House, where mobile phones are locked away and faces are scanned on entry, an unlikely odd-couple relationship has developed between two of Australia’s most influential bureaucrats…Office of National Intelligence director-general Andrew Shearer and Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy have been meeting far more regularly than their predecessors ever did. They are respectively responsible for helping manage national security and the economy…At the heart of their regular discussions is how to manage the national security risks relating to China, without harming the Australian economy…No other Treasury secretary has veered so publicly into discussing the intersection of economics, geopolitics and national security…The world has changed...Government officials are grappling with the rise of China’s authoritarian President Xi Jinping and his ambitions to dominate the Indo-Pacific…The world has fundamentally changed since 2012 when the Gillard government released former Treasury secretary Ken Henry’s white paper, Australia in the Asian Century…It painted a relatively benign picture of the region’s future, anticipating China mainly as a strong economic partner to deliver Australia economic prosperity, and less of a geopolitical threat…For example, trade with China was seen almost purely as an economic opportunity, not a vulnerability to trade wars and economic coercion…But a year later, Xi was installed as president and snatched power away from Chinese reformers who Western governments had wrongly assumed would pursue economic and political liberation…China has “moved in a radically different direction” to what the United States and Australia anticipated, says Elizabeth Economy, a former senior adviser in the Joe Biden administration…Kennedy says Australia is “facing a more contested, more fragmented and more challenging global environment” than a decade ago…To challenge China’s dominance in controlling the supply of rare earths, the Albanese government is offering billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for critical minerals processing, including nickel, lithium, cobalt and other commodities used to make wind turbines, electric vehicles and sensitive defence-related technologies…It’s a slimmed-down version of the United States’ $US369 billion Inflation Reduction Act, offering huge subsidies to clean energy manufacturing and new technologies…“In the case where the goods are genuinely critical to global prosperity and security, and where the actions of one large country are distorting the efficient operation of the market, preventing long-term investment and diversification, we and trading partners should not stand idle,” he said…“We can’t out-China China,” Quinn says, “because that would fundamentally change the basis of our market-based economy…“But there is a role for government to step in. There’s limited circumstances where the [financial] discount rates don’t line up, and the risk can’t be insured by private capital…She uses the example of a “mid-sized, critical-minerals company” seeking private funding, which may face challenges securing finance because investors know China is its major competitor…“There’s some things they just can’t insure against,” Quinn says. “They can’t insure against a state actor using its balance sheet and its taxing powers to do certain things…“So they don’t want to enter that transaction or they have a different discount rate.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is preparing potential new tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles to align Canada with actions taken by the U.S. and European Union, according to people familiar with the matter…The government still has to make final decisions on how to proceed, but it’s likely to announce soon the start of public consultations on tariffs that would hit Chinese exports of EVs into Canada, according to officials who spoke on condition they not be identified…Western democracies are increasingly concerned about China’s overproduction of key goods, seeing it as an effort to dominate supply chains and undercut their own industries. Battery-electric vehicles have become a major target as Chinese firms such as BYD Co. move aggressively into global markets…On Thursday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford accused China of taking advantage of low labour standards and dirty energy to make inexpensive EVs. He called on Trudeau’s government to at least match the Biden tariffs…The value of Chinese electric vehicles imported by Canada surged to $2.2 billion last year, from less than $100 million in 2022, according to data from Statistics Canada. The number of cars arriving from China at the port of Vancouver jumped more than fivefold after Tesla Inc. started shipping Model Y vehicles there from its Shanghai factory…“China has an intentional, state-directed policy of overcapacity,” Katherine Cuplinskas, Freeland’s press secretary, said in an email. 

China’s electric vehicle industry received at least $231 billion in government subsidies and aid from 2009 through to the end of last year, even as the amount of support per vehicle has declined, according to a new research…Slightly more than half the total amount of support was in the form of sales tax exemptions, according to the research from Scott Kennedy, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The rest is made up of nationally approved buyer rebates, government funding for infrastructure such as charging stations, government procurement of EVs as well as R&D support programs, he wrote in a blog post…“Chinese EV’s have benefited from massive industrial policy support, and their quality is improving, making them attractive to domestic and overseas consumers,” Kennedy wrote. “An effective response by the US, Europe and others must take account of both facts.”…He described the data as “highly conservative,” noting that it doesn’t include local-level rebate programs in cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen designed to encourage owners of conventional cars to switch to EVs. It also doesn’t include low-cost land, electricity, and credit that some EV manufacturers can access and benefit from, and excludes support for battery companies and other parts of the supply chain.

Beijing warned on Friday that escalating frictions with the European Union over electric vehicle imports could trigger a trade war, as Germany's economy minister arrived in the Chinese capital with the proposed tariffs high on his agenda…Robert Habeck's three-day trip to China is the first by a senior European official since Brussels proposed hefty duties on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles to combat excessive subsidies. That has unleashed countermeasures by China and harsh criticism from Chinese leaders…This week alone, Chinese automakers urged Beijing to hike tariffs on imported European gasoline-powered cars and the government launched a dumping probe into EU pork imports in retaliation for the EU Commission's move…"The European side continues to escalate trade frictions and could trigger a 'trade war'," a statement attributed to the Chinese commerce ministry's spokesperson said. "The responsibility lies entirely with the European side."…Germany's voice carries particular weight, and its leading car manufacturers have vociferously opposed the EU tariffs. Berlin has urged dialogue while expecting China to compromise…Germany's 60 billion euros ($64 billion) of trade with China in the first quarter of 2024 was less than the 63-billion-euro total volume of U.S.-German trade. That snapped a trend that has ranked China as Germany's top trading partner for eight years in a row.