Trump administration floats using tariffs to implement price floor on rare earth minerals

Ben Werschkul · Washington Correspondent

February 5, 2026 4 min read

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Vice President JD Vance announced a new push on Wednesday to create price stability in the market for critical rare earth minerals and said he wants to use a familiar Trump-world tool to accomplish it: tariffs.

During a speech at the State Department on Wednesday, Vance unveiled an effort to create a protected trade zone with as many nations as possible that are “protected from external disruptions through enforceable price floors.”

This, the vice president said, would create the conditions for more investment by private mining companies to extract these varied minerals, which are often called the building blocks of the modern economy.

“These reference prices will operate as a floor maintained through adjustable tariffs to uphold pricing integrity,” Vance said.

Vice President JD Vance speaks during the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial meeting at the State Department in Washington on Wednesday. (Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images) · OLIVER CONTRERAS via Getty Images

It’s just the latest use President Trump’s team has found for tariffs during his second term, and part of a broader effort to defend US and Western mining companies against a flood of cheaper minerals from China, which has gained overwhelming market leverage in the past year.

The announcement also came on the same day as a call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump described the call as “excellent,” saying the relationship is good — “and we both realize how important it is to keep it that way.”

A week of actions around rare earths

Wednesday’s announcement from Vance was the latest Washington event focused on rare earth minerals just this week.

First, on Monday, the president announced what he termed Project Vault, a plan to build a US stockpile of selected minerals funded with a $10 billion loan from the US Export-Import Bank and nearly $1.67 billion in private capital.

President Trump announces the creation of the US strategic critical minerals reserve during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 2. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) · Alex Wong via Getty Images

Wednesday’s “inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial” brought together more than 50 foreign ministers representing dozens of European, Asian, and African nations. The event also featured a discussion led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and an effort to recruit countries to this new protected trade zone.

Trump’s team has also worked in recent weeks to have the US government take a direct stake in American mining companies. The most recent example came just last week when the US government extended $1.6 billion to USA Rare Earth in exchange for stock and a repayment agreement.

The effort even extended to Capitol Hill, where the House of Representatives — fresh off approving a deal to end the partial government shutdown — turned Wednesday to a debate over the Critical Mineral Dominance Act aimed at expanding mineral production on federal land, as well as plans to introduce legislation to reauthorize funding for the US Export-Import Bank for the next 10 years.

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An overall focus on China

The entire slate of events this week was largely about finding different avenues to confront China, which has repeatedly flexed its rare earth power over the past year.

China controls an estimated 70% of the world’s rare earths mining — and even more of the processing capacity — and threatened to choke off the flow of these elements last year as part of the back-and-forth over tariffs.

As Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put it during the president’s event on Monday, previous administrations “let our critical minerals only be controlled by China, they let our mining business go to hell.”

Vance added on Wednesday that the US dependency on this issue was a lesson “learned the hard way.”

Neither Trump nor Xi mentioned rare earth minerals in their summaries of Wednesday’s call.

President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands following a bilateral meeting in Busan, South Korea, last October. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) · Andrew Harnik via Getty Images

What remains to be seen is how effective tariffs will be in standing up this new effort, which Trump’s team hopes will create a zone of countries spanning the globe.

Vance was clear on Wednesday that many nations remain on the sidelines amid uncertainty about how many other countries will sign.

Vance offered a direct pitch to the representatives of various governments assembled before him, adding that America’s market would be big enough to sustain the effort on its own.

“Finalize those agreements as quickly as possible,” he said.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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