The US has just taken a decisive step toward turning critical minerals from a supply-chain concern into a full-blown trade and pricing issue…On Wednesday January 14, US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation ordering the Commerce Department and the US Trade Representative to launch Section 232 negotiations on imports of processed critical minerals and their derivative products (PCMDPs)…Tariffs, minimum import prices and other trade restrictions are explicitly on the table if talks with trading partners fail…This is no longer just about permitting, subsidies or strategic stockpiles. Washington is signaling a willingness to intervene directly in how critical minerals are priced and traded into the US…Price floors go further, directly influencing market pricing and potentially redefining what ‘fair value’ means for strategically important minerals…For thinly traded or opaque markets — rare earths, gallium, germanium, indium and other battery materials — a US-mandated minimum price could ripple through contract formulas, arbitrage flows and benchmark relevance…In short, Washington is signaling that if import prices are so low that they undermine domestic processing and production capacity, they pose a national security risk…The Commerce Department report cuts to the real bottleneck: the US lacks domestic processing capacity…From Washington’s perspective, this makes cheap imports a liability, not a benefit. If low prices hollow out domestic processing capacity, they become a strategic vulnerability — and one the administration now appears willing to correct through trade policy…This is a notable shift in tone: volatile prices are no longer just a market feature, but a justification for intervention, with the government positioning itself as the stabilizer of last resort…Cost and quality alone may no longer guarantee entry; alignment with US supply chain strategy may matter just as much…Allied producers could benefit, while others may see cheap imports lose their edge.

The Canadian Infrastructure Bank, a government lender with C$18 billion ($13 billion) supporting development across Canada, is pivoting from base metals and gold to critical minerals…The CIB has a dual strategy for critical minerals investments, Shah said. One is working directly with mine developers and investing in their projects while the second is working with various levels of governments as well as Indigenous communities on shared or regional infrastructure that opens up mining regions, she said…The bank’s financing may eventually consider equity investments for some projects, the investment manager said. There will be a learning curve as the Crown corporation immerses itself in the financial metrics of critical minerals and helps companies overcome some of the barriers to funding it identified in a new report released on Monday…These include how debt and equity capital markets for critical minerals mining projects are relatively shallow; the limited familiarity financiers have with critical minerals projects; the difficulty assessing long-term mine profitability due to lack of credible and transparent market prices; the lack of infrastructure to access remote sites; and the perceived high risk of delays for regulatory approvals…Co-investing in infrastructure needed to connect mines and mining regions to transportation and electricity networks is one of the bank’s solutions to the problems outlined in the report…Another is mitigating the revenue risk of projects by using tools such as contracts for difference, which try to protect mine owners from low metal prices, or other measures like securing offtake agreements.

According to the Korea Mining Authority on the 20th, prices of major battery raw materials such as lithium and cobalt have continued to rise sharply since the beginning of the year. Raw material prices, which had been sluggish throughout last year due to the impact of the electric vehicle cash (temporary demand stagnation), have succeeded in rebounding due to the supply control of major producers and expectations for increased demand for energy storage (ESS)…Cobalt is also strong. As of the same day, cobalt prices were $54.49 per kilogram, up 59% from the previous year's average and 3.7% from the previous month. Export restrictions and supply chain instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a major producer, are analyzed to have driven up prices. Manganese prices also continued to rise steadily, although not soaring, reaching a new one-year high…Cobalt plays a role in suppressing performance degradation even in high voltage and high temperature environments by increasing the structural stability and life of cathode materials…Analysts say that China's industrial and trade policies are behind the recent rise in prices of key minerals for batteries such as lithium, cobalt, and manganese. This is because supply conditions in the global raw material market are tightening again as the Chinese government adjusts export management and subsidy policies to maintain leadership in the battery and key mineral supply chains…In particular, policy changes such as strengthening export controls on batteries and related materials and reducing VAT refunds are increasing their influence this year and putting pressure on prices to rebound. In addition, expectations for increased demand for ESS were partially reflected.