The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) Board of Directors today approved a bold new financing tool designed to strengthen U.S. supply chains, reduce reliance on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for critical minerals and rare earth elements, and safeguard American jobs. The Supply Chain Resiliency Initiative (SCRI) provides targeted financing to develop projects that secure critical minerals and rare earth elements, essential for transformative technologies like battery storage and semiconductors, from trusted international partners. These materials, utilized in the United States, will bolster American manufacturing and national security while ensuring economic benefits flow to U.S. workers and businesses… “As we have seen in recent months, private markets can struggle to keep pace with the volatility and challenges posed by market manipulation from the PRC. EXIM’s new Supply Chain Resiliency Initiative will enable American companies to compete on a level playing field while building a robust and resilient supply chain for critical minerals and rare earth elements. This initiative will catalyze growth and innovation in industries that are essential to our economic security.”…SCRI financing will directly support agreements between U.S. manufacturers, such as automakers and battery producers, and global mineral suppliers in trusted partner countries. These agreements ensure critical minerals flow into U.S.-based production facilities, fostering growth in domestic supply chains…By SCRI providing finance for foreign critical minerals projects that supply the U.S economy, EXIM supports other U.S. government efforts to safeguard our supply chains and protect jobs at home. The initiative also encourages onshoring of midstream processing and battery production, creating a ripple effect that strengthens U.S. economic security…“Today, the Administration reaffirmed its commitment to reducing our dependency on the People’s Republic of China and leveling the playing field for Americans through the Export-Import Bank’s new Supply Chain Resiliency Initiative (SCRI),” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. “Through investing in domestic manufacturing and securing access to critical minerals, the SCRI will support American businesses and protect good-paying jobs for American workers against the predatory practices of the Chinese Communist Party.”…Throughout its history, EXIM has a long history of financing projects that resulted in imports critical to U.S. economic security. For example, in the 1940s and 1950s when the Soviet Union stopped exporting uranium, EXIM provided loans to develop foreign production capacity of this strategic resource, ensuring a source of supply for the United States. 

There’s a global race on for critical minerals. While most Americans know little about it, renewable energy technologies, as well as electric vehicles and batteries, require enormous quantities of metals. Demand for copper, cobalt, and lithium is expected to soar in the years to come. The simmering geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China has made supply chains more vulnerable to disruption—heightening the importance of this mineral race even further…The two countries have been hitting each other with tariffs and export bans, with the latest occurring on Dec. 3 when China banned the export of several critical minerals required for military technologies…In the early 20th century, the U.S. underwent a historic shift from relative self-sufficiency when it came to critical minerals like copper and manganese to depending on imports, as economic and military expansion necessitated a greater volume and variety of minerals…That didn’t pose a serious problem until the late 1940s. But as the Cold War escalated, American officials became concerned that it could impede the imports of cobalt, copper, manganese, tungsten, and uranium. These minerals were critical for the burgeoning electronics industry — and for the weapons demanded by the growing arms race with the Soviet Union…This prompted President Harry Truman to dispatch American mining engineers and geologists to South Korea to build an industrial complex around one of the biggest tungsten deposits in the world, Sangdong Mine. Truman’s administration also agreed to purchase all of the metal that the mine produced to build a domestic stockpile. U.S. engineering contractors built a processing plant, power plant, and grid infrastructure. By 1953, this enabled the U.S. to import high-grade tungsten from the mine…Success at Sangdong Mine turned the initiative into a blueprint for policy throughout the 1950s. President Dwight Eisenhower entered office in 1953 acutely aware of the need to diversify mineral supply chains…He advocated for dramatically expanding domestic stockpiles of critical minerals, diversifying supplies from outside the U.S., and providing financial assistance for exploration efforts and infrastructure expansion…Nonetheless, despite their advocacy, protectionism lost out for a simple reason: unlike manufacturing, mining can only happen where there are minerals, not wherever policymakers want it to…Efforts to diversify mineral supplies went beyond simply buying what was produced. The U.S. loaned money to expand transport infrastructure in Brazil and Zambia. They also loaned money to companies in Congo to expand hydroelectric dams to power smelters and refineries and to build new mines and refineries in Zambia. The U.S. received repayment in metal: tons of cobalt and copper, equivalent to the value of the loans, were shipped to the U.S…These efforts proved highly successful. By 1960, cobalt sourced from Africa meant that the U.S. had sufficient stockpiles to meet domestic demand for five years…To some extent, these efforts even ended up being too successful. They produced so much of the necessary minerals that Eisenhower’s successors in the 1960s and 1970s had to sell off the stockpiles. Even then, however, the government was able to do so at a profit, punctuating the success of the mineral supply chain initiatives…This effort provides a blueprint that can work again in 2024…The history makes clear that looming mineral shortages ought not be a cause for concern. They are a solvable problem, though one that will come at great expense. Even if China restricts access to certain minerals, the U.S. can build alternative supply chains that will ensure the feared shortages never happen. 

China's auto exports are estimated to slow notably this year after holding the export crown for a second year in 2024, with no growth predicted for electric vehicle exports, an auto association official said on Thursday…With car exports up 25% to 4.8 million units, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) data, China probably ranked as the world's largest auto exporter ahead of Japan for a second consecutive year in 2024 despite additional tariffs on China-made electric vehicles the European Union introduced in late October…Japan's auto exports fell 4.3% to 3.82 million vehicles in the first 11 months of 2024, according to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association…But export growth is seen cooling to 10% this year, with an expected drop in shipments to Russia adding to tariff pressure in Europe, said Cui Dongshu, secretary general of CPCA, and EV exports are forecast to see "zero growth."…Exports of electric cars and plug-in hybrids, known collectively as new energy vehicles (NEVs), grew 24.3% to 1.29 million last year…While EU tariffs would limit sales of Chinese EVs in the short-term, establishing production facilities in Europe, such as BYD's in Hungary, will help China's carmakers gain market share there in the longer term, said Charles Lester, research analyst at Rho Motion…In China's domestic market, the world's largest, car sales maintained their growth pace in 2024 as EV and plug-in hybrid sales hit a record high amid a brutal price war and with subsidised trade-ins for greener vehicles driving demand…NEV sales rose 40.7% to make up 47.2% of total car sales last year, closing in on a 50% milestone, buoyed by a programme likened to the U.S. "cash-for-clunkers" stimulus in 2009…More than 6.6 million cars sold last year benefited from government subsidies of up to $2,800 for NEV purchases and as much as $2,000 for more fuel-efficient combustion engine vehicles…Overall, car sales are estimated to grow 2% this year while NEV sales are expected to rise 20% to make up 57% of China's total car sales, CPCA predicted.

South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group said on Thursday it planned to boost domestic investment by 19% to a record 24.3 trillion won ($16.65 billion) this year to ensure growth as it navigates political turmoil as well as U.S. economic unpredictability…Its planned investment includes 11.5 trillion won in research and development for next-generation products, electrification, software-defined vehicles, hydrogen fuel-powered products and other technology…It will also spend 12 trillion won on ordinary investment such as expanding production of electric vehicles and new models, and about 800 billion won on strategic investment such as for autonomous driving, the group said in a statement…As part of this, the group plans to build a plant at its Ulsan production site for its new "hypercasting" manufacturing technique for EVs…Hyundai and other automakers are following Tesla's "Gigacasting" technology in which major sections of vehicles are made with large single parts, thereby streamlining production and lowering costs.

Rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo fraudulently exported at least 150 metric tons of coltan to Rwanda last year, leading to the largest contamination of the Great Lakes Region's mineral supply chain on record, U.N. experts said in a report…The flows started after the M23 movement, a Tutsi-led organisation purportedly backed by Rwanda, seized the Rubaya area, which produces minerals used in smartphones and computers, following intense fighting in April…M23's control of transport routes from Rubaya to Rwanda led to Rubaya minerals mixing in with Rwandan production, the U.N. Security Council's Group of Experts said in the report, published on Wednesday…The situation complicates procurement for technology manufacturers, who are under scrutiny to ensure that metals used in their products are not sourced from conflict zones like eastern Congo…The report said the rebels established a so-called mining ministry in the occupied territory and ensured a monopoly for the export of coltan to Rwanda from Rubaya, which has one of the world's largest deposits of the strategic mineral…In this way, the militants collected at least $800,000 per month in taxes on coltan production and trade in Rubaya, it said.