Full Committee Hearing on Strategic Partnerships to Secure Critical Resources and Supply Chains

How we confront a problem America has failed to address for far too long. Our dangerous dependence on communist China for the critical minerals, our entire society, including our economy and our mel- military cannot function without. These minerals are the building blocks of nearly everything that keeps America moving. the alloys in our shipyards and still plants, the chips in our phones and our fighter jets, the magnets, the magnets and precision guided bombs and lifesaving MRA machines, and the fuel in our nuclear reactors and our nuclear arsenal. Today, China, and therefore the Chinese Communist Party, holds dominant control over the global market for critical minerals. China is the leading global producer of thirty of the sixty minerals the United States has designated as critical and controls around ninety percent of global processing capacity for rare earth elements. This this threatens our military readiness and our nuclear strategy. Armed conflicts in mineral-rich regions disrupt the mining and transport of such resources for months at a time. Criminal networks smuggle minerals across borders to dodge export controls and sanctions, often funneling the profits back to the very regimes we are trying to counter. And when the world's processing capacity sits overwhelmingly in one country, a single policy decision in Beijing can cut off American manufacturers overnight. In such a situation, China doesn't have to score, an outright victory to beat us strategically or economically. They just have to control the supply chain. That is exactly why we cannot afford to wait any longer to reinforce our own supply chains rather than let China maintain monopoly power. I saw this challenge firsthand just last week, when I led a congressional delegation to use Bekistan, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. All three countries sit at the center of the world's rare earth and critical mineral supply squeezed between Chinese and Russian influence. And all three are looking for a strong trade partner in the United States. Kazakhstan already supplies more than a quarter of America's uranium imports. Uzbekistan is racing to nearly double own uranium production by twenty thirty. And Mongolia sits on one of the largest copper and gold deposits on earth. Their interest in stronger partnerships with United States is real, and it is an opportunity this country cannot afford to let slip away. Existing existing law known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment since nineteen seventy-four has required annual waivers in order to maintain normal trade relations with certain formally formerly communist nations it seems clear from my recent visit to central asia that partners in the region view these restrictions as a hindrance to deepening our economic relationship i appreciate the leadership that representatives carol miller and jimmy pinnette uh as well as numerous of our members of this committee have shown in pushing for stronger strategic partnership partnerships in Central Asia. And I look forward to detailed discussion today of how we can best achieve this important goal. Africa, as one of the most mineral-rich regions in the world, also holds incredible opportunity for developing resilient supply chains for the minerals that we need. As chairman, I've had the opportunity to lead delegations and travel the continent extensively, and I can report firsthand that many African nations are eager to deepen their economic relationships with the United States. But I've also seen with my own eyes that China and Russia are also present in these countries and are racing to lock up critical supply chains through economic manipulation and exploitation. We must strengthen our partnerships with countries across Africa that are looking to the United States for a reliable economic partner. This committee has already acted to do just that. We passed an extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act through twenty twenty eight, extending a vital program that gives eligible African nations duty-free access to US markets. As one witness who who is here today testified previously before this committee, if a Goa were ever allowed to expire, there will be a party in Moscow, there will be a party in Beijing. That's how vital that this program is for our national and economic security. I'm thrilled to see this extension is now heading to President Trump's desk and I look forward today's conversations on how we can carry that momentum forward and leverage an updated AGOA to build out stable supply chains across Africa. Diversification away from China shouldn't focus exclusively on foreign sources of critical minerals. There are domestic opportunities that we need to be doing more to incentivize as well. Our country has forty-seven out of the sixty designated critical minerals, including thirty-five that we are actively producing. But there are hurdles that must be addressed. In twenty twenty-three, this committee, we traveled to Kimball, Minnesota, and heard directly from the state's mining community about its cobalt reserves and how China's grip on nearly three quarters of the world's refined cobalt was shutting American producers out. In my own district in southeast Missouri, we have one of the few known cobalt deposits in the continental United States. In Fredericktown, a former lead mine that helped arm this country in the Second World War, sits on what may be the largest reserve of recoverable cobalt in America. A short drive north of my district, The old Pea Ridge iron mine holds rare earth elements, including the heavy rare earths such as dysprosium, terbium, and holmium, which are all essential for defense, energy, healthcare, and consumer technologies. I wholeheartedly support efforts to develop our domestic resources, but even with expanded production from what we can mine domestically, we will still be reliant on China for a sizable amount of these minerals. We've been raising this alarm for years, and we have tools to act on it, first here at home and also in both Africa and Central Asia. President Trump is pursuing a comprehensive strategy to secure America's mineral supply chains. His administration has worked to identify our greatest vulnerabilities, streamline permitting to increase domestic production, and empower the U S Trade Representative to negotiate agreements on trade and critical minerals with like-minded partners. These are significant steps but - but long-term success requires Congress to play an active role in shaping these agreements and evaluating the tools the administration is putting on the table. I look forward to today's hearing as this committee has a real opportunity and a real responsibility to help chart a path that reduces our dependence on China, it strengthens our partnerships across the globe, and secures the resources our economy and our national security depend on. I'm pleased to r- recognize the ranking member, Miss Sanchez, for her opening statement.

Thank you, Chairman Smith. Um, I'd like to begin this morning by congratulating ranking member N- Richie Neal on his primary victory last night. We look forward to serving with him in his next term. Uh, I also want to thank the witnesses for joining us today. You know, critical minerals are a timely and important topic, but we really need to put this hearing into perspective. Americans' pocketbooks are feeling the squeeze, thanks to Trump's nonsensical war with Iran and his disastrous economic policies. Gas is up thirty-eight percent in just six months. Beef prices are up nearly ten percent just this year. And meanwhile, Trump is doubling down on his illegal tariffs, even after his Supreme Court defeat and starting a self-defeating trade war with Canada. Instead of stroking his own ego and renaming lakes, Trump should listen to what's worrying American households. Though despicable, the president's actions are not surprising. What is disheartening, however, is the silence from congressional Republicans, which allow this circus to continue. With Congress stepping back, shady backroom deals have become a defining feature of this administration. Just this week we learned of a murky oil deal that the president struck with Venezuela. Meanwhile, the American people are kept in the dark because Republicans don't want us asking who really profits from this chaos? To answer that, one needs to look no further than President Trump's critical minerals agenda. Let me be clear. Ways and means Democrats have long supported strengthening US critical mineral supply chains. We need to invest in clean energy and technology, create good paying American jobs, and reduce our reliance on China. That's not where we disagree. The issue is how do we get there and who gets rich along the way? Democrats will not turn a blind eye to the Trump administration's corrupt conduct. For example, the New York Times found that fourteen companies tied to Trump cabinet officials' families, are seeking or receiving nearly nine billion dollars in federal support, including a lucrative critical minerals project in Kazakhstan. Another example is Vulcan Elements. Donald Trump Junior's investment firm took a stake in the company, and just months later, the Pentagon announced a six hundred and twenty million dollar loan to Vulcan, followed by another fifty million dollars in federal support. Pro Publica reported that the loan process was accelerated after the White House intervened on the company's behalf. Then there is USA Rare Earth. With Cantor Fitzgerald as its lead placement agent, the company raised one point five billion dollars in private capital, while seeking an equity stake and a one point six billion dollar uh gift from commerce. And who leads Cantor Cantor Fitzgerald? Well, secretary Letnick's sons. These cases demand answers. We're not talking about pocket change here, we're talking about hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that are on the line. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is weakening oversight at institutions like EXIM and DFC, laying the groundwork for politically connected insiders to profit at the public's expense. Competition with China is no excuse for abandoning safeguards which prevent taxpayer funds from being misused for private enrichment. We also cannot say that because China is a strategic competitor, every mining deal is automatically a good deal. Securing our supply chains does not mean we have to sacrifice labor rights, human rights, or environmental protections. Americans can compete with China and uphold democratic values. We can secure critical minerals and create jobs for American workers. We can also build supply chains without recreating the exploitative the exploitative systems that have historically defined global mining. Congress has a duty to ensure that American taxpayer dollars are invested in projects that serve the national interest. The resources of the United States government belong to the American people, not to the President's family, not to cabinet officials' families, nor to their business associates. So I challenge my Republican colleagues Do not waste this hearing by digging for fool's gold while real conflicts of interest are staring us in the face. And with that, I yield back.

Thank you, Ranking Member Sanchez. I will now introduce our witnesses. Ambassador John Herbst is Senior Director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center. We have Doctor Gracelyn Baskaron is Director of the Critical Mineral Security Program the Center for Strategic and International Studies. We have Mister Daniel Runde, is author of the American Imperative, Reclaiming Global Leadership Through Soft Power. And we have Doctor Morgan Bazillion, is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Minds. We also have Miss Melinda St. Lewis, is Director of Global Trade Watch at Public Citizen. Thank you all for joining us today. Your witness statements will be made part of the hearing record, and you each have five minutes to deliver remarks. Ambassador Herbst, you may begin when you are ready. You put out your mike on.

Oh, excuse me.

Thank you.

Okay, Chairman Smith, uh, Ranking Member Sanchez, other distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the honor of speaking at this hearing. Um, I'm currently Director of the, Senior Director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, but I'm t- providing testimony in my personal capacity. Thank goodness the US has rediscovered Central Asia. Central Asia is the very heart of the great landmass that extends from Europe's Atlantic coast to Asia's Pacific coast. The British geographer and geopolitician, Halford Mackinder, referred to this supercontinent as the world island. He famously said, " Who rules the world island, commands the world, who rules the heartland?" commands the world island, and who rules the world island commands the world. Washington has played close attention to Central Asia when the Soviet empire disappeared and the new nations of Central Asia merged but then that tension increased when Al-Qaeda launched attack on the US from Afghanistan but over time, American interest in the region slackened, especially after the fearful withdrawal from Afghanistan in twenty twenty one. This diminished attention never made sense because in addition to the region's abundant natural resources, Central Asia borders the United States' principal adversaries, China, Russia and Iran. It is not good for us if these nations exert undue influence in Central Asia. Makinder was right. But there is good news. Within nine months of returning to the White House, President Trump announced an initiative to heighten relations with the region. He decided correctly that US natural security required urgent action to acquire and refine critical minerals and rare earth elements, which Central Asia has in abundance. The development of the high-tech economy and military has placed an increasing importance on the mining and refining of these resources. For the years, the US has slowly sought access to such minerals abroad and at home. Meanwhile, China was energetically mining its abundant r- resources, acquiring resi rights abroad, and establishing himself as the world leader in refining. The White House more active approach on mineral resources is absolutely essential. Kazakhstan is the world's largest uranium producer, ranks second in manganese reserves and third in titanium production. It also holds major reserves of copper, lithium and tungsten. Uzbekistan has reserves of tungsten, lithium, mag- manganese, another critical mineral with its mineral resources potential estimated at up to five point seven trillion dollars. Tajikistan is the world's second largest antimony producer accounting for approximately fifteen percent of global supply. Kyrgyzstan also has twenty rare earth mineral deposits and more than sixteen thousand active mines and deposits. Despite its critical critical mineral abundance, the US only receives two point one percent of mineral exports from the region. Central Asia also possesses significant hydrocarbon resources, which are described in my written testimony. The Trump administration has underscored its interest in the region by convening last November a presidential summit of C five plus one, a format that refers to the five Central Asian states and the US. The Trump administration speaks of cooperation with the C five plus one based on economic, energy and security pillars. The economics pillar looks to increase trade and investment. To further this goal, the November twenty two thousand twenty five summit had a joint statement of intent on economic cooperation, and it designated the B five plus one a business correlate to the C five plus one. A major conference was held on this in Bishkek um last February. Sergio Goy, the President's Trump's ambassador to India and the special envoy s- south of Central Asia has been instrumental in advancing these initiatives. The US approach towards Central Asia has been enhanced by Trump's diplomacy with President Ali of of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Pashanyan of Armenia. It has strengthened the nearly complete peace deal they've been negotiating for years. They also reached agreements on establishing the Trump route for international peace and prosperity trip in the South Caucasus which offers economic incentive for peace and further progress on normalizing relations between Armenia with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Trip would also team up with Kazakhstan's idea for a middle corridor, connecting Central Asia with the West, with Europe. The five Central Asian states decided late last year to add Azerbaijan to their group, turning it into a C six. This raises the question of whether the C five plus one will become a C six plus one. If the Trump Central Asian initiative yields fruit and the trip, the transportation corridor becomes viable, this would be a natural next step. The US's pursuit of close ties with Central Asia is impeded by the Jackson-Vanik amendment. Passed in nineteen seventy-four. Nineteen seventy-four, it placed substantial trade restrictions on the Soviet Union and other communist states designed to encourage emigration from Soviet Jews and other repressed groups. When the Soviet Union disappeared, the legislation remained in force. Removing these trade restrictions permanently requires legislative actions. Jackson Vanik has been listed for some nations, but it still applies to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as well as Azerbaijan. It is high time to remove this obstacle to growing cooperation with the region. There is interest in Congress in repealing Jackson Vanek, a step that Secretary of State Rubio has endorsed. This year's C five plus one ministerial will take place next month in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Congress can provide memorandums for this meeting by pass passing legislation to rep reveal Jackson Vanek prior to that meeting. This would be an excellent example of Congress working with the administration to promote US critical interests. I'd like to thank my staff, colleagues, Andrew Denary and Kate Spencer, for help preparing me for this hearing. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you. Doctor Baskaron, you may begin when you're ready.

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Sanchez, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name's Gracelyn Baskaran, I'm a Mining Economist and the Founding Director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at CSIS. And I have spent thirteen years working on critical minerals globally, including seven years based in South Africa. with extensive work across Africa's major mi- mineral-producing economies. My central message is simple. The United States cannot achieve mineral security alone, but mineral security is not just about finding mines. It's about building durable economic partnerships that make mines and the supply chains around them commercially viable resilient and mutually beneficial. Africa is an indispensable part of this. The global race for critical minerals has moved to continent that has often operated to the center stage of strategic competition. The continent holds the majority of global reserves of cobalt, manganese, and platinum group metals, alongside world-class deposits of copper, lithium, graphite, nickel, and rare earths. In twenty twenty four, four of the top ten jurisdictions in the world for rare earth exploration were in Africa, and the DRC now produces seventy percent of the world's cobalt. But geology alone doesn't produce a supply chain. A company can develop an ore body, but it cannot independently build the rail, port, and power and customs systems that make production bankable. China understood this two decades ago. It did not simply invest in mines, it built the entire ecosystem around them. The United States has begun to respond. The Libido corridor and the US DRC strategic partnership agreement are important steps. But I wanna take a moment to i address the concerns about governance corruption in the DRC directly. The concerns are real, but they are not an argument for disengagement. They are an argument for engagement with enforceable standards. The strategic partnership agreement makes anti-corruption commitment to judicial reform and transparent sourcing explicitly part of the partnership. Does an agreement eliminate corruption? Of course not. But it gives the United States commitment, standards and leverage that we do not have from the sidelines. If our response to governance challenges is simply to walk away, the minerals will still be developed. The question is whether the United States is at the table shaping how. And this brings me to my central, essential challenge, durability. Our partners are making investment decisions based in d- d- decades. A mine, a railway, or a processing facility built today may operate for thirty or forty years. Yet too often, the policy architecture we offer them resets every one, two, or three years. This committee has the tools to fix that, and I'd like to put three recommendations forward today. First, put AGOA on a longer term footing. I commend Chairman Smith for authoring the AGOA extension act and the house for passing it. But AGOA lapsed last year at the very moment we were negotiating a landmark minerals partnership with the DRC and our partners drew conclusions about American reliability. AGOA's value to mineral security is not the tariff rate on ore, it is in what makes the whole trade relationship work. The Libido corridor cannot run on copper alone. It needs agriculture, manufactured good, and cargo moving in both directions. And Congress should use the next two years to build a modernized ten-year AGOA. Second, we need to give critical minerals agreements a statutory footing. The administration has signed more than twenty minerals fa- frameworks in the last year but most rest on executive authority alone. And a partner government is entitled to ask what happens after the next election. The committee has seen the problem before. When the twenty twenty three minerals agreement with Japan bypassed Congress, members of both parties objected. Congress should define in statute what a qualifying agreement must contain, establish a formal consultation role for this committee, and reserve the most valuable benefit, including tariff preferences, for agreements that meet that standard. And third, tariff policy should reward partners for moving up the value chain, not punish them. Copper illustrates this contradiction. Refined copper from Zambia or DRC enters the United States on little or no tariff, but if you convert it into rod, wire, or sheet, the very value addition we are urging, those products face a fifty percent section two thirty-two tariff. We cannot tell Zambia and the DRC to move up the value chain and then impose a fifty percent tariff when they do. Congress should establish preferential tariff treatment for qualifying minerals and processed products from countries with serious minerals agreements, with the United States. Ultimately, the U N US military s the US mineral security and supply chain resilience will depend on making American partnership the better economic proposition we do not need to ask mineral producing countries to choose between Washington or Beijing we need to offer the investment the financing market access and long-term partnership that gives them a reason to choose us the minerals are measur measured in tons the investments in billions of dollars and the timelines are measured in decades. American trade policy must operate on the same time horizon. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mister Rundee. You may begin when you're ready.

Thank you, Chairman Smith, uh, Ranking Member Sanchez, members of the committee for inviting me to testify. My central message today is simple. Securing America's critical resources and supply chains require not only resources, but relationships. When I testified before this committee in twenty twenty four, I said that if we allowed a goal to expire, they'd be popping champagne in Chi- Beijing and Moscow. Well, Mister Chairman, thanks to the bipartisan action uh in the Congress, uh they can put the champagne back on the shelf. So I think that's good and so thank you for your leadership on that. Um, this committee possesses some of America's most important tools of economic statecraft. Let me start with Africa. Again, I commend the committee and the Congress for the uh bipartisan action on extending a goal to twenty twenty eight. We got We got more work to do. Africa possesses extraordinary critical minerals. You know all of this. Uh, China's there. They're eating our lunch. We've gotta we've gotta do more. AGOA is an important part of that. It's not a critical minerals program, but it creates the trade relationships and investment certainty we need if American companies are gonna invest in mineral in Ameri- African mining, processing, energy, et cetera. China thinks about these relationships in decades, and we should too. Congress has acted on a goa. I hope Jackson Vaneck graduation is next. We think a lot about Kazakhstan and Central Asia, let's be honest. Uh, we need to think more about Kazakhstan and Central Asia in terms of the periodic table, and not about some movie that was made twenty years ago. And I think you all know what I'm talking about. So we need to think about them as the periodic table, not some movie that that we saw twenty years ago. I urge this committee to graduate Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan from Jackson Vanek and grant them permanent normal trade relations. This is in your power, this committee's power. You could do this. Uh, I also believe Congress should consider graduation for Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Jackson Vanek was an important accomplishment of the nineteen seventies. It addressed restrictions on freedom of emigration in communist countries, particularly the Soviet Union. But Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan aren't the Soviet Union. They've been independent countries for thirty five years. And US administrations have certified them as compliant with Jackson Vanek for decades. So here's the question for this committee. Does continuing to apply Jackson Vanek to these countries advance the American interest? I think the answer is no. Kazakhstan's got lots of uranium, and lots of minerals, and lots of oil. Uzbekistan's got lots of uranium, gold, copper, and a lot of gas. China and Russia are their neighbors. We can't change that. But these countries want more choices. They want more American investment and more of America. If we're serious about competing with China, we can't ask Central Asian partners for a twenty-first century economic relationship, while continuing to treat them under a twentieth century law designed for the Soviet Union. So, possessing resources is only half the equation. We gotta move them. So we need things like the Middle Corridor. Central Asian countries need more routes to the outside world, not fewer. There's a whole bunch of funny name things. There's something called the Trans-Caspian route, links Central Asia across the Caspian, through Azerbaijan and onward towards Europe. Azerbaijan is a really important country. It's the strategic bridge connecting Central Asia and the Caspian to Western markets. Trip. The Trump route for international peace and prosperity creates another opportunity. This is a good idea. There's another thing called the Trans-Caspian gas connection. It's not been built. People have been talking about it for thirty years. It'd really help us. It'd help lower gas prices in America if this thing got built. Hasn't been built. Railways, ports, roads, fiber optic cables can give this region more choices in greater connectivity with the West. And they want more connectivity with us. So this committee has the ability to have more connectivity by graduating these countries from Jackson Vanek. So secure supply chains require secure relationships and multiple routes to market. We shouldn't ask Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan to choose among the US, China and Russia. We have to give them choices and we have to make sure that the American choice is the best choice. So, Mister Chairman, Congress can't change Central Asia's geography. Congress can't change how many uranium deposits they have. And Congress can't change whether or not we build a pipeline across These are all good things. But this committee can use American trade policy to strengthen the relationships on which secure supply chains ultimately depend. So I hope Jackson Vanek is next. You've just demonstrated with AGOA that bipartisan trade legislation is possible. So if there's a bipartisan agreement to graduate four countries from Jackson Vanek, I'd welcome it. But at a minimum, I'd urge this committee to move Kazakhstan

Uh, Mr. Bazilian, you may m- begin when you're ready.

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Sanchez, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. It's an honor. I'm a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, the institution we believe is the best in the world on these topics. This morning I wanna focus on four recommendations. Before I give you the four, some history. Washington has stood up three versions of mineral diplomacy over the last decade at the State Department. The pace has accelerated. The current administration, as you know, has had a flurry of activity and investments, bilateral and plurilateral agreements and MOUs. All of these efforts are based on a very similar principle. Durable partnerships are required to counter Chinese dominance. Minerals are having a moment. That is evident in many of the members of this committee being able to pronounce neodymium and dysprosium. The problem this committee should keep in mind is what my colleagues and I call the mind-to-mission gap which is a framework for understanding risks to supply chains. Much of our recent work is focused on military supply chains. Access to ore is one thing, but material has to be processed and refined, Additionally, industrial chemicals and gases are needed for these processes, and China's dominance runs deepest at these later steps. Additionally, any trade agreement or financing vehicle should consider the full value chain all the way through to manufacturing and demand. Without that, our diplomatic efforts risk falling short of U. S. national security objectives. This is not hyperbole. There have been real impediments to producing munitions, drone, batteries, missiles, energetics, and even radar systems for F- thirty-fives at the scale and pace required. Here are the four recommendations. First, pass the pending legislation, graduate in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan from the sev- nineteen seventy-four Jackson-Panik amendment to permanent normal trade relations. Continuing to apply a Cold War trade restriction on countries critical for things like uranium, hands China and Russia an unnecessary win. Second, complete house action on the AGOA extension and write a critical minerals chapter into its reauthorization. Sub-Saharan Africa holds roughly thirty percent of the world's known critical minerals reserves, and if we don't change our approach, China will continue to dominate these relationships. Here, special attention to illicit trade and working in conflict areas is warranted. Third, consider statutory requirements for the agreement on trade in critical minerals. The provisions on rules of origin, diversification criteria, and qualification standards need congressional input before any agreement is finalized. Fourth, require government-wide mind-to-mission resilience assessment. Today, there are many departmental and agency mineral strategies, but they remain too siloed, something we know a lot about in academia. We need to understand not simply what minerals we possess and scenarios for preparedness but how long it will take to restore production after a disruption. Three steps can help. Congress should pair new trade agreements with technical training, since workforce problems are as significant as capital ones. Congress should condition the DFC and XM financing on binding arbitration and stabilization clauses. And Congress should ensure transparency, appropriate disclosure, and independent review in federally supported mineral investments. Let me end by stating what should be obvious. Genuine security does not mean American isolation from global markets. That said, ensuring a vibrant domestic mining and processing sector sector coupled with world-class advanced manufacturing base will reinforce the efficacy of these international efforts. One small note, while stockpiling is part of the solution set, the design must carefully navigate the competing needs between civilian and military needs. The security and economic strategy is clear. Eliminate single points of failure through diversification, enforce trade rules that keep adversary price manipulation from bankrupting at alternative suppliers. The trade tools before this committee are the primary means

Uh, Miss St. Louis, you may begin when you're ready.

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Sanchez, and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to to testify today on behalf of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch. It's a reasonable goal to seek diverse and reliable supply chains for minerals. But the way we do so matters. When we're talking about supply chains, we're talking about real people, people who work in dangerous mines, indigenous and other front-line communities whose land might be seized or polluted, children whose health may be harmed. These people are put even more at risk by trade and investment deals that don't require transparency that lack strong and enforceable protections and that fail to sovereignty and development goals of partner countries. My testimony focuses on three areas. The lack of transparency in the Trump administration's critical minerals deals, harmful terms in the texts we've seen, and risks of corruption and misuse of taxpayer financing. First, unprocess. The Trump administration has flouted congressional authority as it's negotiated a web of minerals deals including framework agreements, agreements on reciprocity, biblical trade, action plans, and MOUs, providing no central source of information on what countries it's negotiating with, or the specific terms under discussion. Earlier this year, the State Department suggested the existence of thirty-eight MOUs or frameworks. Public Citizens' review of publicly available information r revealed just twenty-seven, fifteen MOUs and twelve frameworks, and the US government has released the text of only two of those MOUs. We've submitted FOIA requests and initiated litigation recently, seeking the release of the remaining texts. USTR is also developing a plural lateral agreement in trade on c- critical minerals. Textual proposals of any such deal should be made public so that we can understand what's being negotiated and who stands to benefit. Second, with respect to harmful terms in the deals, the Trump administration has threatened steep tariffs and even conditioned aid and security guarantees to strong-arm countries into deals that control how they can regulate, export, and allocate their mineral wealth. This undermines partners' sovereignty and devel- development goals, and grants the US government and US investors extreme power over foreign resources. The deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo, part of an ostensible Trump-negotiated peace agreement, grants US companies a right of first offer to a secretive reserve of mineral d- deposits and forces the DRC to amend its laws, and if needed, its constitution. Meanwhile, the violence in the DRC has continued unabated. In Zambia, the Trump administration even planned to tie HIV and malaria treatment to critical minerals access. And in several agreements on reciprocal trade, such as with Indonesia, critical minerals provisions weaken the ability of those countries to promote value addition and increase government revenue. And all of these deals lack enforceable environmental labor or human rights commitments in our industry rife with abuses. And third, opportunities for corruption. These deals, alongside President Trump's executive orders, create the framework for XM and the development finance corporation to bump billions of dollars in taxpayer-backed support into mining and processing projects without sufficient oversight, or guardrails. Such opaque financing arrangements are highly susceptible to bank-rolling high-risk politically-connected ventures. For instance, recent reporting from Kazakhstan raises conflict of interest concerns. Eric and Donald Trump Junior increased their investments in a company just days before it acquired major stakes in a Kazakhstan mining firm that's been offered up to one point six billion in potential DFC and XM financing. The project deal was reportedly ushered through with the personal help of President Trump and top officials. And that same month, Secretary Letnik also signed a minerals MOU with the Kazakh government. which has not been released. Setra- secretary Letnick's former former firm, Kent or Fitzgerald, now controlled by his sons, also invested in a Texas mine that recently received one point six billion package in federal funds. And Vulcan Elements, a small rare earth start-up, received six hundred twenty million dollar government loan, twice the company's valuation after receiving backing from seventeen eighty-nine capital where Donald Trump Junior is a partner. The massive amounts of taxpayer funds involved in these deals require public disclosure of terms, ownership, financing, and government guarantees to avoid corrupt practices. And I'll conclude by urging this committee to exercise its authority and demand that the concluded critical minerals deals be submitted to Congress for secur- scrutiny and approval. And we urge Congress to require that future deals contain measures that help meet important climate, job, sustainable development, human rights, and anti-corruption goals. Thank you very much and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you. We'll now proceed to the question and answer session. Congress voted twenty-six years ago to grant permanent normal trade relations, or PNTR, to China, removing the application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to that country. That was a massive mistake that in the subsequent years has harmed American workers and manufacturers in my district and throughout the United States. I think it is safe to say that many members of Congress on both sides of the aisle share that same view. Ambassador Herbst, what lessons can we draw from the experience of granting PNTR to China And as we consider whether to pass similar legislation for friendlier nations in Central Asia that uh what are your thoughts on making individual decisions on PNTR status for countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan um where during my recent travels I saw evi evidence of significant reforms in both of those countries versus a sweeping change um to the entire region that might reward other countries that perhaps haven't shown the same commitment to reforms.

OK, uh, we made a very serious mistake in allowing China to enter uh the world trade agreement uh without making significant changes in its trade practices, because we factually believed that becoming part of the system would lead them to to make the right decisions. And since even at that point in time they were a significant economy, this was a material that created material damage to American economic interest. And we are playing catch up since. Um, but China at that time was not perceived as an adversary, which was a mistake. Uh, the countries we're talking about today, um, are in no sense adversaries. They are, in a sense, countries who are looking to find their way in a hostile environment. The Central Asian states are surrounded by hostiles, by s- by s- states that are our principal adversaries. And congratulations to you for making that plain in your introductory remarks. And if we offer them fair trade arrangements, they're gonna want to trade with us. They're gonna want to give us substantial access to their critical and rare earth minerals which we desperately need. And uh there's almost no downside for us to remove the Jackson Vanek restrictions on them. Obviously we are not enthusiastic about all of their domestic practices, but um I I know I served in Uzbekistan from two thousand two thousand and three as ambassador, when they offered us critical military help to go after the Taliban. And they have made some major reform in the past seven or eight years, not enough. But we have no reason again to use that, to f- to use their, the flaws in their current, um, economic and political systems to get in the way of us developing a closer economic relationship with the Uzbeks and the Kazakhs. This is not the mistake, uh, we made with China. And in fact, it helps us address the danger that Chinese leverage over-rears um presents to us.

This committee has worked tirelessly to reauthorize the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Having advanced a three-year extension through our committee and the House of Representatives um successfully enacting into law a one-year extension this past February and then just yesterday, sending to the president's desk in extension through twenty twenty eight. But we know we can and must do more, um, which is why we have not given up on achieving a longer term reauthorization. Um, Miss Miss Bhaskaran, um, how critical is a long-term, perhaps decade-long, um, reauthorization of a GOA with appropriate updates to to America's economic and national security interest, in particular our ability to separate our critical mineral supply chains from a hostile Chinese Communist party? And and why is the long-term piece so very important for American investors and potential African partners who are interested in building out these supply chains?

Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for your leadership on the extension. Goa is a bedrock of U.S. Africa. commercial diplomacy and it has been the longest signal that we have had of our commitment to developing the con the continent's economy now critical minerals and Agoa are a tricky nexus because it's not necessarily that critical minerals have high tariffs that benefit however at a time when many African economies need jobs mining is also not a labor intensive sector so first a lot of the sectors that benefit from Agoa with without which they would actually lose their their economic benefit our manufacturing and agriculture sectors that directly benefit from Ogaway. So being able to give them that benefit generates enormous soft power and goodwill and job creation potential. The second thing is a lot of the infrastructure that we are trying to finance on the continent like the Libido corridor are not bankable on copper and cobalt alone they actually rely on cargo from agriculture textile manufacturing et cetera and so we need to ensure that those sectors

While while today's hearing is is rightly focused on how to improve our trading relationships to secure critical supply chains improving our economic ties to Africa and Central Asia can surely, surely pay dividends beyond just better military readiness and and greater greater innovation. Um, Mister Rundy, beyond beyond securing our critical supply chains, what other strategic advantages would come from a long-term extension of a GOA or or changes to the Jackson Vanek status of of certain countries. In particular, how can stronger trade and economic relationships in these regions help the United States build lasting partnerships, strengthen our economic security and national security, and advance our broader interests alone?

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Part of it, life is showing up. And so, having a ten-year, a Goa extension is about showing up in Africa. Africa's got a billion people. There're gonna be more Africans in Africa than Chinese citizens and Indian citizens combined in about twenty years. It's really big. There's something like seven hundred million cell phones in Africa right now. There's a four hundred million middle class in Africa. This, a Goa, extending a Goa is a st- a affirmative step by the United States and by this committee to say that we see Africa as a business opportunity. Africa's an enormous business opportunity, in addition to sort of security issues that you've mentioned, Mister Chairman. Central Asia's an enormous business opportunity. Central Asia's had incredible development over the last twenty years. Yes, they have a lot of rocks, they got a lot of oil, and they lot of, got a lot of gas. They also have a lot of people. And they're strategically located. And they want more of America. Just like Africa, Central Asia wants more of us. So again, half of life is showing up. We gotta show up. So one way sh we show up is a ten year extension on a go up. Another way we show up is to say, we're your friend, we're a tw- we wanna have a twenty first century partnership with you, not a twentieth century, you know, old think partnership, you know, that's on a, you know, stick partnership with you, based on Jackson Vanek. So you have the power in this committee to take an affirmative step to say, we see Central Asia as a really, really, Ladies and gentlemen, it's a really important part of the world, it's really far away. Some of you have been there and have seen it and understand it, and if you haven't been there, I encourage you to go, and if you haven't been to Africa, I encourage you to go. Africa is a really big market for America and a really important part of our future, our kids' future, and Central Asia is a really important part of our future and a part of our kids' future. It's just it's far away and we don't think about it. So I think these are affirmative steps, it's about showing up. removing irritants and setting clear rules of the game. I know, Mister Chairman, you understand this and this committee, I'm confident, understands this. Thank you.

Thank you. I now recognize the ranking member for any questions.

Thank you. Uh, Miss St. Louis, Public Citizen has done important work to bring information about the Trump administration's secretive critical mineral minerals negotiations to light and I know that it's been incredibly difficult when the administration is trying to hide basic information about these deals. Um, much like you, not even Congress can even get answers from the administration on what's included in those deals. Um, I have personally led two letters, each signed by more than fifty members of Congress, one asking questions about the administration's approach to the agreements, and another asking questions about the problematic deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the administration has ignored both of those. Um, you mentioned in your testimony that the number of critical mineral deals that the trump administration claims to have entered doesn't match up with their public amount announcements about concluded um deals. So let me ask you directly, what information are we missing from the administration? And based on your research, how many deals has this administration entered into, and how many have been made public?

Um, thank you for the question. Yes, as you mentioned, we have dug into to try to try to track down um the specifics of the overall announcements. There was a State Department fact sheet that stated that there were uh seven, eleven new agreements, ten already signed and s- and completed, and negotiations completed with seventeen, totaling thirty-eight. And we through publicly available information, we found the existence of twenty-seven frameworks or MOUs, fifteen MOUs and Only two of those MOUs and three frameworks have been released by the US government. We were able to track down um some of the other MOU texts by the partner governments making them public, um but there are still more than half that we have not seen the text of.

And why why do you think the administration has been unwilling to publish the

Uh

agreements?

I mean we can't know their their motives uh for maintaining the shroud of secrecy, but um uh during the negotiations and even after some of them are concluded, but it does seem like through the EOs and um that they intend to largely sidestep Congress and and the public on these deals um when Congress and the public can't evaluate what access, which investors, what financing or commitments are embedded in these agreements without the full text. So I think I under Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution, Congress has the authority over foreign commerce, and these deals clearly qualify and should be presented to Congress for approval, particularly the eight uh agreements on reciprocal trade that have critical minerals provisions. Um, even the nine binding MOUs deserve scrutiny because they established the pipeline for taxpayer-backed XM and DFSI DFSI financing.

Yeah, I I could not agree with you more. Congress must be involved in in these. Um, we're seeing a pattern where the administration's pursuit of critical minerals is going hand-in-hand with military strategy from invading Venezuela to conditioning support for Ukraine. Now, administration officials have described this approach as " peace for minerals", but when American service members lay their lives on the line and mineral access becomes part of the bargain for reshaping political relationships, the question becomes peace for whom and minerals for whom. So, Miss Lewis, w- or St. Louis, what are you seeing on the ground in these countries? Are working people, minors, local communities and labor organizations being included in these negotiations? And are these deals improving their wages and working conditions?

Well, I say the short answer is no. Uh, workers and local communities are not being included in in any way in the negotiation of these deals. They've been announced with whole cloth before civil society, or even legislators from the US or the partner countries are even aware that the negotiations are happening, much less the terms in those deals. Uh, we convene a table of civil society organizations with deep ties, um, in many of the countries, um, where the resources are located. For instance, we partnered with the Friends of the Congo on a report on the deadly cost of Congo, mining in Congo, where we see children as young as seven working in mines under dangerous conditions, lack of s- basic safety measures, um, uh, toxic metals, uh, in the rivers, lakes, streams, forced evictions, often very violent, uh, to clear the land for mining. And those Congolese civil society leaders came to Washington in twenty twenty five to voice their concerns about the lack of transparency, and lack of inclusion. Um, and the deal was not debated in the Congolese government, uh, it, even though it was signed and it requires ch- potential changes to their constitution. So there have been constitutional challenges to that deal in Congo. Um and par- parliamentarians have been protesting loudly, uh and we've seen violence in the mining areas of the DRC continuing since um since the this deal, despite diplomatic efforts, and thousands of families are displaced. Now humanitarian crises related to the heightened Ebola risks among displaced people and un- in other parts of the world unfortunately we've heard similar stories of dangerous working conditions, health impacts. displacement of indigenous communities and not being included in any of these deals.

Thank you for your testimony. It's no wonder they're being kept out of the public view. I yield back. I now recognize the chair of our trade subcommittee, Mister Smith from Nebraska.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chairman. I appreciate your uh prioritizing these issues that are uh so important to our economy and to our country in just in in so many ways. Uh Strong economic and trade policy, we know doesn't happen overnight, it takes very diligent effort and regular engagement. To develop science-driven risk-based goal uh global standards, we must engage, and to ensure agriculture market access keeps pace with new products coming to market, we must regularly revisit our agreements. If we want to ensure nondiscrimination in digital service regulations, we must be vigilant and forward-looking with for- foreign regulators. And if we seek to create secure, resilient supply chains for critical minerals, we must be a reliable trading partner with long-term plans of engagement. Unfortunately, our adversaries are all too eager to dominate the critical mineral supply chains. China is advancing an aggressive and intentional strategy to control global production and processing capacity. As we observe this trend, it is imperative that the United States strengthen strategic partnerships with other market economies to ensure we have both reliable and redundant supply chains. This week, I'm certainly grateful we are able to approve another renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, AGOA. We should think of this as a foundation, not the extent of our engagement in sub-Saharan Africa. AGOA should not be a passive program, but rather a tool we use to increase collaboration with beneficiary countries. As we look for a long-term reauthorization, I'm very keen to hear new ideas of how we can use it to support critical mineral supply chains. I'm also encouraged to hear from countries in Central Asia, which are eager to s- strengthen their relationship with our country. I look forward to discussing today what tools Congress has, or should create, to advance these relationships. Ms. Bhaskaran, in your testimony you discussed ways that US policy should balance interest in raw materials versus processed critical minerals. Can you expand uh on the benefits of developing trade and supply chain policy that supports this capacity both at home, and abroad, and then what are some specific ways this committee could look to incorporate critical minerals policy more specifically into a long-term, a goa, reauthorization.

Thank you, Congressman. The principal challenge that we have today is not whether critical mineral supply chains are political, because we understand across the aisle what the challenge is. It is making these supply chains economic. We are not competing against, uh, in on a level playing field. So today when we look at processed minerals, there are three things we need to think about. First of all is how do we think about integrating the supply chain from the mine to the manufactured good? When you look at what China did extraordinarily well for decades, it was combining their foreign policy to secure minerals from around the world, and bringing them back home to process them here, and that was by bringing that together with domestic industrial strategy. So as we think about how we are engaging with partners to secure minerals, we need to think about processing as well, to get move it along the supply chain. That requires um using capital from the development finance corporation, the export import bank. That requires bringing in private players. It requires bringing in manufacturers to buy that material. So that's gonna be the first thing, is making sure those policies are speaking to each other. The second thing we're gonna need to do is we're gonna need to think about how do we support processing hubs around the world. We can't build everything here, and so thinking about who our strategic partners are, One of the crucial challenges to building processing in sub-Saharan Africa is the shortage of energy. When you think about what is driving about forty percent of the cash cost of smelting copper, it is energy. Africa has a shortage. We know that seventy-five percent of the world's population without energy is sitting there. So we need to think about how are we building that ecosystem in v investment to allow our partners to move up. Ultimately, if Africa is able to move up the supply the value chain, they can sell to the global market. to sell raw material back to China. And the third thing we need to do, and I think especially with this committee, is think about longer timelines. We can't work in one year waivers and we can't work in three year extensions, because critical minerals is an industry that can take uh t twenty five years to develop a project. And one of China's long benefits is not having to yield to electoral outcomes every four years. We have democracy, democracy is a good thing, but we need to develop policy on longer horizons, whether it's with our critical minerals agreement, whether it's with our trade policy to ensure that our investors can develop projects with that confidence in mind.

All right, well I appreciate that and uh time is is short here, but uh Mister Rundi did would you wanna add anything about regional processing and then and what we should be mindful of as we move forward perhaps on uh processing infrastructure and some of those items that Ms. uh Bhaskara and Doctor Bhaskara

Sure.

Yeah, thank you Congressman.

on that issue.

I would just say like absolutely having in a a ten year ago uh or a twenty year ago as was saying is a really good thing. And as you said, Congressman, it's only the first step. And as I said earlier, it's about showing up in Africa, and then we've gotta have long-term goals in terms of we don't wanna be dependent on China for processing. There are a lot of countries in Africa that have manufacturing capacity, they got a lot of gas, and they could process minerals. They wanna move up the value chain and they wanna partner with America. They want American companies and American partners Helping them to process those minerals. They don't wanna just pull the rocks outta the ground, put them on a train, and ship them to China. They wanna do that themselves. They have deep and big aspirations for um for their countries. These countries are gonna be a big part of our future and so developing, moving these countries up the value chain and uh uh what we want is for these countries to say America was a key partner in helping us become rich. Cuz someday we're gonna have a we're gonna have a lot of wealthy African countries, There are some se- well-governed countries in Africa that have big ambitions. And I want thirty years from now, when we're in this hearing room, or in the other hearing room in the other building,

Hopefully.

hopefully, that um that they're gonna say America was our best partner in developing our hopes and aspirations as a rich African country. So, a GOA, as you said, Congressman, is the first step. This committee has the

Thank you.

took a first step yesterday, uh, the Congress did. But having a tenure ago is part of it, and then we've got other steps we have to take.

I appreciate that.

But it's, yup, thanks.

Appreciate that, and the fact you mentioned there are good business opportunities for American businesses.

Huge business opportunity for American countries.

Thank you. I yield back.

Mister Doggett.

The unfortunate critical minerals predicament that, uh, we find ourselves in has been greatly worsened by wrong-headed Trump policies. Just as his reckless war in Iran has only strengthened Iranian hardliners, as they grabbed Trump by the harmoose, so also the trade war with, that he's launched with a tremendous tariff taxes that Americans are having to pay, just highlighted to Beijing how much Trump feared they're withholding critical minerals. This week, of course, President Trump uh told Americans to stop complaining, stop complaining about those noisy data centers that are disrupting so many communities. He's declared, " Let data reign." As usual, congressional Republicans either agree with him or refuse to question his insistence that communities need not be concerned about their air, their water, or electric bills, just give these companies whatever they want. And what do these data centers run on? Well, many of them rely significantly on critical minerals, the copper and the wiring, the gallium and rare earths, chips and their cooling systems. That's what this hearing is about, securing raw material for server forms owned by the richest corporations on the earth whose executives have flattered, contributed and cultivated Trump's favor and his necessary help to enrich his family. So with Trump ignoring the concerns of so many Americans about what's disrupting their backyards, imagine how little he cares about what happens to the air, water and health of those in distant lands from which these minerals are being extracted. Mining of course can be a dirty and dangerous business. Heavy metals contaminate surrounding water, soil, and even the lungs and blood of the miners, exacerbating food shortages and preventable deaths. In the Congo today, small children are digging cobalt from the ground with hand tools, breathing toxic dust that shortens their lives. The Trump regime's indifference to this suffering is reflected in its December agreement with the Congo, which appears to be the unfortunate model for agreements around the Earth. The word " environment" appears in that document twice in referring to the business environment, not one word about environmental obligations anywhere else. What it does contain throughout the agreement are provisions which make it easier for investors in their rush for profits to subvert any weak environmental enforcement within the Congo. In Indonesia, nickel mining has wiped out forest lands larger than the Grand Canyon, significantly contributing to greenhouse gases and weakening our ability to combat climate crisis. It's poisoned waters and created other problems. And while the details of Trump's uh reciprocal tariff agreement with Indonesia are of course secreted, we have concerning reports that it not only lacks environmental obligations, but also undermines the weak domestic environment conditions within the area. As for Jackson Vanek and the Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan situation, uh I have a different view. It was enacted originally because of human rights concerns. Those concerns may not be the same as when enacted, but they're still very real. True, Uzbekistan's leaders no longer boil their opponents alive as they once did, but the human rights situation in both countries remains very severe. Also, both have served as major transshipment points uh for products into Russia as it committed its war crimes against uh Ukraine. Unless there is change there, we should not ignore what is happening in Asia. It is not acting in nor- uh normally in some of these countries. Also, the problems of corruption. Nothing within these agreements. Uh, and uh, it's, this seems mainly to be a business opportunity for the Trump family and the Letnick family. Involvement in fourteen different critical mining operations around the world, at the same time their fathers were negotiating agreements. Miss St. Louis, let me ask you if there's anything you've spotted in your research in these agreements, concerning corruption not only with the abrogation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act largely by the administration, corruption either where the minerals are extracted or here in the, with the Trump family trying to enrich itself through this and so many other mechanisms.

Thank you for the question. Uh, as, as I mentioned in my testimony, there is serious concerns of, and potentially are just the tip of the iceberg, um, with the uh the deal that I mentioned in Kazakhstan um that with the firm linked to Eric and Donald Trump Junior and increasing their stake in the company just days before it acquired a s major stake in this Kazakhstan mining firm that now is potentially receiving upwards of a billion in taxpayer fund financing. Um in addition to some of the um examples I said in my testimony, a public citizen also today released um another report about the complex web of of of the of, I'm sorry, of the companies that uh participated in a mining round table that uh President Trump attended on August third and what we found were that among the companies participating were firms that are only nine months old, they're connected to the administration's family members or donors, they're associated with fraud or fraud allegations, and whose financial backers remain largely hidden from public view. And our concern is that uh many of these decisions are resulting from the Trump administration putting financial authority in the hands of a small group of former private equity env- executives. They're essentially placing taxpayer dollars and in some cases direct ownership interest behind companies that have not demonstrated that they can deliver and um this is a model where a small number of politically collected, uh, connected investors are positioned to benefit from federal financing. Um, we have seen that at the same time the administration in March of twenty twenty-five waived security and exchange commission disclosure requirements for projects, ba- backed by federal agencies, including those that mandated publicly traded companies demonstrate a mind can actually make money. So it's really a concern that um, taxpayers could be holding the bag and politically connected individuals could be benefiting.

Miss Chairman, I have a unanimous consent request, asking unanimous consent to insert into our record the June, uh, of this year New York Times report entitled Trump cut a billion dollar mining deal, his sons stand to profit.

Um, without objection, so ordered. I wish you would have done it, you know, in your first five minutes, not the last two. Um, Mister Kelly.

Uh, Chairman, thank you, and thank you all for being here today. Um, so, we are looking today at supply chains and who do we re- who do we rely on to give us the r- supply the materials we need in order to to uh protect ourselves. So I almost feel like this is December sixth, nineteen forty one, or maybe September tenth, two thousand eleven. There's something coming tomorrow that we really need to be aware of and being being foretold as being forewarned. Uh, I'm im- I'm interested in, uh, as I read through all your testimony, it's absolutely incredible what we have ceded to China, uh, and we've made ourselves dependent on an adversary whose goal ultimately is to make sure that we don't have any, any standing in the world. And I would just tell people that, uh, I'm, I'm always, uh, I'm always fascinated or, uh, more than anything else, uh, proud The United States of America is the first responder to everything that goes wrong in the world. Anytime anything goes wrong, we're the first ones to answer the bell, we're the first ones there to help, we're the first ones to, to do whatever needs to be done to help people, but the only way we can continue that is being economically sound. And so as I read through all your testimonies, I was really fascinated. Uh, I know in my, my state we have something called Marcellus Shill and Utica below it and Rutherford below that. And we were once called, Pennsylvania is referred to as a, the uh Saudi Arabia of natural gas, so I think we're so blessed with so many, so many materials that we need. Um And that, so we come today to - to - to this uh - to this hearing. Uh Doctor Bizerian, I wanted to talk to you about this, and listen, every one of you have incredible information, but how did the United States, how did we become so dependent on China for critical minerals? I mean, how could American companies compete If China can use below-cost pricing, they don't have to make a profit, uh, until they eliminate us from that model, and then all of a sudden they control all the market, which they almost do now. They will determine what, who gets what and what they pay for it. And what tools with this, within this committee's jurisdiction, would be most effective in countering China's predatory pricing and giving investors the certainty needed to make long-term investments in a critical mineral supply chain. I'd, I'm not sure that sometimes we get in these hearings Um, and, and we get away from the critical thing. I uh, I've been blessed with four children, ten grandchildren, number eleven's on the way. Um, I just don't ever wanna walk out of here after serving and say, you know what, we could have s- done something to help you all, but we were, we're so concerned about ourselves, we didn't think about you. Doctor, you, some of the research you've done, I mean, you are truly, you are all the canary in the coal mine. What is it that we don't see coming? What is it that we don't understand in everyday language, uh, so like lithium is a good good example, we have our sources of lithium, uh, I don't think we should be relying on anybody who's one of our enemies to to supply us with that. So if you can just give us some of your viewpoints on that, because I thought your closing, the last paragraph was the one that really this should be in. When the United States, what the United States need is a US and allied industrial system capable of continuing to replace the weapons and systems consumed during the months of sustained combat and that system depends on partnerships that carry minerals all the way from the mine to the mission. I will note that ultimately the uh uh these uh minerals and metals are only aspect of a wider industrial economy and advanced manufacturing, but that is largely beyond the scope of today's event. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being the canary in the coal mine. All of you, we need to wake the hell up. This is not a political issue. This is a policy issue. This is about the safety and the security of the United States of America. Now, I don't care who's in the White House, whether it be any, I don't care who served before or who's serving now. We better wake up. Let's get the hell away from all these political b- arguments and get into policy arguments that are safe and secure for the future of America. So, doctor, if you could just expand on some of the things that you have already laid out. I am fascinated by how long we have been asleep. And I b- and I mean this when I say that. December sixth and September tenth They led up to two events that had we been aware of it ahead of time, we could have stopped it from happening. Doctor, please.

Congressman, thank you very much, uh, and congratulations on your new, uh, grandchild coming. Um, China has at least two or or or three ways to control the the critical minerals, um, area. One, they can use export controls which they've used to a great effect already and the second that in the purview of this committee is that they can um dump uh products and affect market prices um the third which largely goes unnoticed is that they have been building a workforce in this area for decades after we ceded control of the processing of these minerals and metals for various reasons part of the reason we seeded them was environmental, the second was that they uh don't make any money. And the second one is is still difficult. In other words, today if you go to refine a product like copper or nickel, um the refining or the processing has to has to pay for the product. There's negative pricing in a lot of markets, including here. And so we have a rather complex set of difficulties and the last point is one you've already said which is that china as a competitor is able to look long term as some of the colleagues have been here and they can also move money around uh easier than we can so the the competition is fierce um i completely agree that minerals have become fundamental to national security the problem in the united states is that these windows of attention don't last for long they're fading, uh they're uh uh ethereal. And and uh China doesn't have that problem. And so if we can keep this topic a a as top of mind, like you're doing today in today's committee hearing, for a bit longer than a an election cycle, we have a chance to ad- ad- address these things. Uh, th- you know, modern mining is a very sophisticated and high-tech high-tech endeavor. Uh, at the School of Mines we train about half of the country's mining engineering students. That is one or two orders of magnitude, in other words, one or two zeros less than what China does every day. And even though this has become a priority through your good work, uh, China is not sitting and applauding our efforts. they are moving ahead and accelerating their efforts both in terms of mine both in terms of funding and prioritization and so i think the kind of things that this uh committee has uh under its purview uh are are critical for giving the correct market signals and and those are very important the last thing i'll say

ok doctor bazillion i apologize for interrupting but um we need to make sure

hold on

that this committee sticks to the five minutes. Um, we've had the last four speakers, um, that has gone way over and I've tried to be lenient, but I'm going to make sure that it's five minutes. So when that clock hits five minutes, your time is expired. Mister Thompson, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, for holding today's hearing. Thank you to all the witnesses. You know, our Ways and Means Committee should hold a hearing every single week about this administration's trade policies. Our committee has the jurisdiction and the responsibility to find answers to the questions that go to the heart of the economic pain and business uncertainty, that's impacting every American today. Americans deserve to know why the average family has paid thirty-eight hundred dollars more for goods and services since the start of this administration. Americans deserve to know why we're fighting a trade war that is making inflation, the cost of living, and everyday prices go up, not down. Americans deserve to know why this administration gave a twenty billion dollar bailout to Argentina, and then threw our American cattle producers under the bus by opening the door for tariff-free beef imports. Americans deserve to know why this is ratcheting up trade hostilities with our friend, neighbor and ally, Canada, while n- kowtowing to Putin's murderous regime. Mister Chairman, today's hearing is meant to examine, and I quote, strategic partnerships to secure critical resources and supply chains. Americans deserve answers about how the President's belligerent treatment of Canada and other allies is advancing quote-unquote strategic partnerships. Americans deserve to know why we're fighting with Canada instead of working with them to strengthen our ties in areas like access to critical min- uh minerals, which you talked about in your opening statement. And Americans deserve to know why this Congress hasn't signed even one new trade deal when we were promised And I quote, " Ninety new trade deals in ninety days." End quote. Americans deserve to know why this administration is walking away from the authorization of the USMCA trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, a trade agreement that I worked on with many of the members here on this dais. And at the time, President Trump said was " the greatest trade deal ever." Americans deserve to know how the Department of Forever Wars is making the U. S. an unreliable trade partner and undermining our economic dominance with debt. Americans deserve to know why a trade policy that was supposed to support manufacturing is recklessly leaving our small manufacturers behind. Mr. Chairman, I recently received a letter from a small electronics in my district. He's struggling to stay competitive because of all of these new tariffs. The tariffs threaten his business and the livelihood of hundreds of employees in my district. This small manufacturer used to buy components from domestic companies who but those domestic companies uh have all been shut down. Now, here's the craziest part. My local manufacturer pays more to import components and to do the final manufacturing here in the United States of America than if they just imported a finished product manufactured abroad. Mister Chairman, I'd like to develop a strategic partnership with you and anyone else on our committee who's interested in finding a way to ensure that small, domestic manufacturers never pay higher tariffs than a company that imports Finnish goods from abroad. I think that we can all agree in a democracy, public opinion is important. We can also agree that the US has an interest in expanding critical mineral supply chains in places like Canada. And according to a report this spring by the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy, Eighty-one percent of Canadians now view their relationship with the US as negative. Forty-four percent of them see it as very negative. For those not paying attention, the US-Canada relationship has gotten even worse since that study was done. Does America's damaged relationship uh with Canada help or hurt our ability to work with allies to confront China and I'll take an answer from anyone on the, on the witness stand.

You got five seconds.

I'll take it in writing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Schweikart.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. And look, I I I truly appreciate um expanding relationships with friendly countries who have resources we want and hopefully we can get that happen. But um Professor Brasilea and forgive me if I mispronounce um I wanna go a little wider on the discussion of critical minerals. Um, being someone I, I have a whole list of articles I've been saving of everything from, hey, in modern technology, the ability to extract uranium from seawater, the ability for critical minerals from brine, um, but also the number of steps that are required in, you know, the processing. You know, we are, you know, stressed by how much of the c- processing capacity China controls, But in many of the articles I have here on my laptop, talking about a hundred plus steps and lots of really ugly by-products that also need to be mitigated. Um, you have a remarkable resume. I - I was digging it. I even just looked up one of your articles from Nature. Um. Outside supply. Let's have you and I say the next generation of extraction and refinement. what could we do to do the concept of technology leapfrog to the next generation of technology to become a nation of actually production and refinement of these critical minerals? What would you have us do?

Thank you, Congressman. Um, mining is a, uh, capital-intensive and very long process, especially uh here in the United States. And so, um, when companies need an enormous amount of capital, they need enormous amount of trained people. And as we've, the congressman sitting next to you said recently, we seeded that training and that expertise abroad after World War Two, roughly. We used to have on the order of twenty copper smelters in this country. We have two now. Um, along with that technol- along with the people, that technology has shifted place. And the other thing that influences that, and Chairman, I will stay within this time frame, is um, that if you don't have the in- advanced manufacturing of the products in your country, you have much less incentive to work down the supply chain for sophisticated pieces all the way back to the oars. But to answer your question uh briefly, there are um very exciting new ways to process minerals and materials from biological to chemical and those are being funded and pursued uh across this country, and they will have an impact. Um but this is a scale industry, and the scale is very hard to do anything like leapfrog about. And so I'm not quite that's why I think this committee is so important, that you're you're gonna have to work with partners in order to do those things. Um, so I appreciate the question. I'll s I'll stop there.

No, it look um uh uh uh and maybe I'm being a bit um technology utopianism, of the ability to leapfrog, but also do things in a different way, you know, um being one of the states that actually is last copper um refining and SX and all the things we sort of grew up doing and what's the next generation and lithium salts um many of the other types of extractions um as we work on policy of saying ok you know here's tax policy for the extraction of a material um my fixation is also it gotta go so much further cause it's not enough to have the raw input if we also haven't moved to you know how how i get the um you know uh uh uh uh uh the by-products i actually need from that to to actually be useful in modern manufacturing and and it should we be also fixating on the ability to produce the final product let alone just find the raw material

just very quickly um there there would be there are useful policies, investment policies, financial tools that should be put in place to incentivize the processing um because right now it it does not make any money. And so looking at the investment into processing is is absolutely essential.

Uh l look uh down to last few seconds, um I think you're part of a paper that was talking about some of the new ways to produce oxides for many of these materials. And that's what we ultimately really need. if we're gonna leapfrog into modern manufacturing. Was that a yield back, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Davis.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks, uh, to all of our witnesses for being with us this morning. America's future depends on access to critical minerals, which are the building blocks of our green and digital national defense, and overall economic security. These minerals are essential to the production of wind turbines and sol solar panels, electric vehicles, and charging infrastructure, drones, satellites, and advanced defense systems, smartphones, laptops, and other critical electronics, and data centers and mobile communications network. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, as just described by Mister Thompson, is recognized as a global mining powerhouse with abundant deposits and access to more than thirty-four critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt, and other minerals essential to advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies. Yet, rather than strengthening this strategic partnership, the Trump administration has pursued an increasingly hostile trade and diplomatic posture towards Canada. The failure to reach a comp- comprehensive trade agreement raises serious questions about the future of North American economic cooperation. Miss St. Lewis, given Canada's critical role in supplying the minerals needed for our energy, technology, manufacturing and the fish industry, how is this administration's adversarial approach towards Canada likely to affect our ability to build a secure and resilient North American critical mineral supply chain? Are we jeopardizing one of our most important strategic partnerships at a time when China and other foreign competitors are aggressively seeking to control global supplies of these minerals? And what should the United States be doing to repair this relationship and ensure that Canada remains a reliable partner in securing North America's critical mineral supply chain.

Thank you for the question. Uh, I agree with what you've said, that partnering with Canada on a mutually beneficial minerals policy would, makes a lot of sense, obviously, given our geographical proximity, as well as the opportunity to set high standards for worker and environmental protections, given are like-minded, uh, that we are like-minded, um, countries. But President Trump's hostility towards Canada and our has jeopardized our abilities to do so, I believe. Our daily stories, as, as has been mentioned in the media, are about how Canadians are boycotting American products and refusing to travel to the United States uh many border states, such as Michigan, are losing revenue. And um I was just in Canada and was struck actually how by how everyone I talked to, regardless of political orientation, is very serious about boycotting US goods and not coming to the United States. Um and I think it's important to remember that once trust is is broken, it may not be easy to repair it. Um countries will find other more reliable partners to do business with, and we've seen um that begin, so I think it's important for our um for congress to hold the administration accountable and to push to ensure that we aren't pushing deals where the us is the has to be the winner and every other country like and our neighbors even our allies uh uh must lose in long term um we need to push for these mutually beneficial agreements uh as i mentioned before we have a a real concern around the the mining practices and processing practices around the world with Canada we could set really high standards um and I would encourage us to do that but that is not the direction that we're seeing these the the secretive deals that have been negotiated plus as you mentioned this adversarial trade war with Canada.

Thank you, thank you very much, and now you're back Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Lohut.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you for having this hearing here. I want to thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony here today. Uh, beyond serving on this committee, I also serve on our intelligence committee and our select committee on China. And we are focused on how do we win the strategic competition against China, particularly in AI and quantum. I would make the argument it is existential for the future of our country that we win the AI race and the quantum race against the CCP. Um, and our our CIA Director uh John Ratcliffe has repeatedly said uh in open settings, China has a plan to replace United States, and they're working at it every single day. They want to beat us technologically, militarily, diplomatically, technologically. And as we think about the topic of today and critical minerals and how essential they are to so many things in this country, uh it it's concerning uh that we're upwards to ninety percent reliant on China. Uh, and we saw last year during a a a a trade war, a potential trade war we had with China, how we essentially had to give in to China so that we could keep these critical minerals flowing. I I also um, a as as we think about this strategic competition, I wanna um read from an article, this is from August eighteenth, so about two and a half weeks ago from the Financial Times. "Batches of Navidia's H" two hundred chips, one of the company's most powerful and complicated AI chips, have been allowed to enter mainland China. The Financial Times reported this on Tuesday, citing two people with knowledge. ByteDance and Tencent, two Chinese companies, have received ten thousand H two hundred processors in recent weeks. And I, and I mention that because essentially, in my view, these H two hundred chips were feeding the hand of a country that wants to replace us. But I'm not sure this would be happening if we weren't so reliant on critical minerals from China. And there seems to be a quid pro quo here, and that concerns me and a lot of other people here. And Doctor Brasilia, I'm wondering if you could comment on that and uh on that quid pro quo and and the reliance um that China has on us on the chips, so that they can um, you know, move forward with their AI build-out.

Thank you, Congressman. Yes, uh, I agree, those two areas are absolutely critical for national security, and both of them rely on supply chains for, that run through minerals. On the quantum side, um, on the cyber security aspects of quantum, it's gen- it's uh, uh, genuinely frightening. I have a paper coming out, uh, next week on that topic. Um, we have, at mine, at the School of Mines we have two programs, the first of their kind in the United States on training students on engineer engineering of quantum systems both at the undergraduate and the graduate system uh levels and are working on a put a quantum system inside of our mind. Uh that has some physics benefits. Um but they are uh and the training aspects of on quantum in particular is interesting, you don't need as many physicists who understand quantum mechanics as you need people who can fix refrigerators. So it goes back to um some of these training issues about how we actually put these things together. Um on AI we've written extensively on the minerals needs for AI and and they do uh include some rather exotic minerals um like indium but there's also a need for an enormous amount of copper. And so the the leadership on semiconductors and therefore uh AI data centers and AI programming does run through critical minerals and uh bringing those up in this uh committee is uh very important. The last thing I'll say is that the military is now running, like the rest of society, on AI. And the uh our ability to protect those systems um for uh especially in cyber security is absolutely crucial. and we're seeing um those kind of uh attacks coming on infrastructure like we've seen on water infrastructure recently. Thank you.

Doctor Bascom, do you care to comment on that in the remaining thirty seconds?

Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Congressman. We know that chips, critical minerals, and tariffs are the core part of the economic state craft tool kit. And the reality is, even though we passed the Chips and Science Act, which gave two hundred and eighty billion dollars for chips, there are four critical minerals you need for them, gallium, germanium, pal palladium and polysilicon that we remain reliant on China and Russia for. So at the end of the day, chips and minerals sit at the very heart of economic coercion and we'll continue to do so.

Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Estes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, uh, appreciate you holding this hearing today. Secure and reliable supply chains for critical minerals are central to our national security, our global competitive net posture, and American economic growth. as well as domestic advanced manufacturing. I represent Wichita's, Wichita, or Kansas's fourth congressional uh district, better known as the air capital of the world. Our workforce designs and builds world-class commercial aircraft, defense platforms, and space components. For over a hundred years, Wichita secured America's leadership in space and and aviation completely. Uh, aerospace and defense products, including those from the air capital, require secure and stable access to critical minerals, and processing capabilities. Increasing demand for commercial aircraft and defense products highlights that we must urgently diversify sources for strategic uh uh important minerals. Uh, in fact, the global commercial fleet is expected to grow by over fifty thousand airplanes over the next twenty years, and general aviation aircraft sales are up almost twenty percent in value compared to twenty twenty five. Orders for new commercial aircraft from new markets in Central Asia and Africa translate to real opportunities for my constituents in Kansas, and underscores the need for strategic partnerships to secure access to critical minerals and processing capabilities. Simply put, we build the best planes and make the m- ad- the most advanced defense products. Our domestic industrial base must have a secure, reliable, and uninterrupted pipeline of critical minerals, specialty alloys, and advanced materials. Certifying new aer- aerospace grade materials takes years, meaning single country dependencies are an unacceptable risk to our defense readiness and economic strength. The challenge we face isn't just raw resources extraction, it's also the fact that China holds dominant control over processing and refining of these minerals counting for over ninety percent of global processing capacity, for key components. If a supply chain breaks or an adversary cuts off access, the s- the assembly lines in Wichita feel the strain and the country suffers. United States must do more to safeguard supply chains both domen- both domestically and with reliable global partners. That brings us directly to today's topic. Central Asia and Africa hold major reserves of the critical resources needed for aerospace and defense, including titanium, tungsten, cobalt, and certain minerals, along with the ability to refine them. Strategic partnerships between US and Central Asia and Africa and opportunities to develop capacity without dependencies on a single country. Working with partners in these regions will help us build resilience, enable US competitiveness, reduce dependencies, develop new suppliers, and bolster the strategic relationships that the Trump administration is already working to improve. I'm glad the committee is working on a thoughtful approach to advance engagement in these regions, such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act. I've been a long-time supporter of AGOA and its goals in growing our partnerships on a reciprocal basis with countries in Africa. I'm looking forward to strengthening and expanding AGOA to ensure more access and development of critical mineral supply chains. Congress must take an active role alongside the the Trump administration to evaluate the tools at our disposal to expand opportunities for American manufacturers, secure our industrial base, and ensure Wichita continues to soar. Doctor Brazilian, uh, in in the aerospace industry, qualifying a new supplier can take months or even years to meet strict uh strict regulatory uh standards, as China con- continues to dominate the downstream processing and refining. How can US structure partnerships with countries in Central Asia and Africa that focus primarily uh specifically on processing and certification, and not just extraction?

Uh, thank you, Congressman. Um, the concept that we have uh put forward is something called pre-logistics. What matters most in a sustained fight is not the size of a stockpile or the ability to get material in short terms. But whether that's that covers or exceeds the time a disrupted supply chain needs to recover, we need to do scenario planning to understand that, and that has to be on multiple theatres. We call that pre-logistics. It it it it talks to a military concept of securing vital uh indus- industrial inputs which is called left of boom meaning before something blows up to ensure the industrial base possesses verified raw materials before the shooting starts. I will say though that military needs are a a very, very small percentage of overall economic markets, and therefore they have to be uh designed with and use the wider economy and the pricing so that they don't get out-competed for these things.

Alright. Well, thank you and I appreciate uh uh the importance of this hearing and particularly as it impacts the the country and I appreciate all the witnesses, being here today. I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Saul. Uh first I'd like to take a moment to celebrate the passage of the two year reauthorization of AGOA, which was included in the CR which we passed uh the house yesterday. As a champion of uh the AGOA program, I wanna thank you, Mister Chairman, for your leadership in making sure that we got this across the finish line. I think all of our um witnesses have said that we need to have a long-term reauthorization of AGOA. It's gonna be critically important for not only providing certainty, but for also uh making sure that we get a critical minerals uh program that is one that can be sustainable into the future. Uh and so I wanted to ask m- you, Miss Baskin, cuz you stated um so eloquently why that was so important. Uh we should be using the the next uh two years to try to figure out how we can best modernize the AGOA program. Can you talk for a bit about what you think our priorities should be in terms of that modernization?

Great, thank you ma so much and thank you for the work done on that reauthorization. I spend uh quite a bit of time in Africa and I can't tell you how many times times it's come up with our counterparts uh the longevity and ensuring that there isn't another disruption. So a couple things that jump out to me on modernization is, you know, when I we're sitting in a critical minerals hearing and Ngoa wasn't built for critical minerals, we weren't thinking about this in the year two thousand.

No.

I wish we were, but we weren't.

Yeah.

Um, so a few things. We also need to think about how to attach an incentive to get investment into Africa.

Mm.

So when I think back to the Inflation Reduction Act, one of the things the Inflation Reduction Act did is it created a thirty D sourcing credit.

Mm.

It said if the minerals came from the United States or a country that we had a free trade agreement with the only country in Africa we had a free trade agreement was with was with Morocco, which if I create an incentive for these jurisdictions, I'm creating a disincentive for everyone else. incentive so that our American manufacturers who get minerals from Africa, regardless of industry, we don't have to tie it to to EVs, right? It can be semiconductors because our palladium is still coming from South Africa, it can be our cobalt from the DRC that's coming in for our battery manufacturing. We don't have to think about it through the narrow lens of zero tariffs, but also how do we get more investment into it would be the biggest one.

That's that's a very good uh point and something that I think that all of us on this committee focused laser focus on trying to uh implement. Um Miss uh St. Louis uh you know I've heard troubling reports that the Trump administration may withdraw from the International Labor Organization, ILO, um this would be devastating consequences around the world I think, including in sub-Saharan Africa. Uh could you uh could you talk a little bit about why withdrawing from ILO uh would make it harder to monitor labor standards? uh, in minds, uh, in those AGOA countries.

Uh, thank, thank you for the question. I, um, am also very concerned by, by those reports. I think the International Labor Organization is, um, a critical organization to be able to, as you mentioned, um, monitor labor standards, we, uh, our, the US, uh, participation in the ILO is uh helps countries all over the world implement um uh labor standards and and push for the right to collectively bargain, which is extremely important, um workers' uh safety standards and and so forth and um we, you know, in our trade agreements we often point to the ILO,

Yeah.

right, as uh ILO standards and and our partners around, labor partners around the globe want to actually strengthen those standards.

Yeah.

And - and -

And in terms of that, you know, I was just talking to Miss Bhaskara about uh modernization and um it would be great to hear from you about what types of labor and in environmental enforcement mechanisms that we should be considering as we consider modernizing Goa.

Well, I think what we saw in a - as kind of a floor in the original USMCA negotiation, um there is a rapid response mechanism for labor violations. I think it's really important for there to be facility-specific uh mechanisms to that you don't have to wait until the it's widespread across the entire uh industry, uh um and country. And it's important for the enforcement to happen rapidly, because as we know, for union organizers who are who are repressed, they can't wait two, three, four years for there to be some sort of implementation. So there must be um a rapid response mechanism,

Or rapid, yeah.

and I think that there are ways to improve that, and it must be included for uh for the types of uh minerals agreements.

Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I worked on the USMCA rapid response um mechanism, and I agree with you that we need to put that, that could be a model for future uh trade agreements. Uh, Mister Mister Chairman, I just wanted to say that I think we should use the next two years to really focus on trying to modernize uh AGOA so that when we reauthorize it again we can reauthorize it for a decade and not just every two years. Thank you so much.

Totally agree. Mister Smucker.

Thank thank you, Mister Chairman. Uh thank you to the witnesses uh for being here. I'd like to take a step back and and and um maybe respond to uh something that we heard from the other si- from one individual of the other side of the aisle about the need for uh critical minerals. And maybe uh Doctor Bhaskaran I'll uh ask you to respond to this. One of the comments was made that we're holding this hearing um just to ensure that we can continue uh to build data centers. Um and why I would argue that that's perhaps an important part of the hearing. I think it is important that we win the AI race with China and it's concerning if they are uh are the only ones that have access to certain critical minerals we're all we're gonna have the debate around how data centers are gonna be where they're gonna be located there should be local control, we have to deal with the electricity they should provide the electricity they're using and so on and so forth but the point is um data centers I think are important, but my view and my constituents uh I think would be interested to hear from you how much broader this is than just data centers so i wanted you to respond to that uh sort of charge that's been made i represent um a a the a district in pennsylvania central pennsylvania uh where manufacturing and agriculture is really really important um and i've talked to company owners about all of the access to critical minerals that they need for their products and so i wondered if you would just explain to someone who may be listening why this is much beyond data centers, why it's so important.

Thank you, Congressman. Whoever controls the raw materials is going to control the future of strategic technologies across the board, whether that is national security and defense technologies, whether that is energy resilience and our ability to build grids for affordable energy for Americans or whether that is the future of American economic competitiveness through things like semiconductors. So raw materials directly impact every part of our national economic and energy security. I'm uh originally from Detroit, and I love our automa- automotive manufacturing, and when the rare earth export controls that went into effect hit auto manufacturing in Chicago six weeks later we saw that end-to-end impact. So whether it's data centers or automotive manufacturing or agriculture and fertilizer, raw materials will control who has dominance in each of these sectors.

So, could you speak for just a minute to the families, uh, farmers and small businesses about what it would mean if we continue to allow, uh, China to control these supply chains? Like what could that mean in terms of availability of products, pricing of products, and so on, uh, for them?

Absolutely. You know, back two years ago and China started rolling out export restrictions on gallium and germanium, it wasn't something that the average American realized could impact their lives as much as it has. But it has, right? Because again, the decisions made in Beijing hit factory floors and American paychecks. Second, it has inflationary impacts, when we don't have access to these materials, it means that the things that you buy when you go to the supermarket are significantly more expensive. So For all of the manufacturers in America, both the affordability of day-to-day life and the access to them is directly contingent on our ability to access materials. We should never be at the the um other end of China's bargaining table with an impact time of six weeks.

Yes. Uh, so so we've talked about uh different partnerships, relationships with Africa, with Central Asia. Um, we've also talked about uh the importance of moving some of supply chain from China, how do we assure that Chinese owned or Chinese processed materials are not simpl- if we if we enter into uh new arrangements or extend a goal for instance, how do we assure ensure that uh China isn't simply routing their materials uh through those countries and uh and and relabeling them?

As long as China owns the global monopoly on processing, matter where the minerals come from, they're gonna go to China, go into the same refinery and come back out. So there's two things we need to do. First of all, we have to take that processing control away from China by helping support the development sometimes through financial support, of ensuring we can create supply chains where they are mined, processed and manufactured outside of China. Once we have that, we also need to build our traceability system to ensure that our manufacturers know where they are getting their materials from. I am surprised at how often we don't know where our materials are coming from today. So we need to build the capabilities and then the traceability systems for accountability.

Thank you. Mister Arrington.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ranking member, witnesses. Um, I don't think many Americans, I won't say any, but I I think probably most members of Congress knew just how dangerously dependent we were on China and others for um critical products and materials for our nation's uh security and the American people's health, whether it was manufacturing drugs ninety something percent, if not virtually all antibiotics and other drugs in China, or the computer chips that run virtually everything in the United States, coming from Taiwan, um, fertilizer from EU for the, um, food supply and, um, food security for our own nation and our people, which is certainly a national security issue, we can go down the list, but I think, uh, uh, my friend and secretary, uh, Besant said it best, that the supply chain disruptions from the COVID pandemic were a humbling beta test for how unprepared we would be for kinetic conflict with China. I mean, what a sobering statement from the secretary of the United States treasury. I agree with him, and now we all together, Republicans and Democrats, with the uh mission of independence and resilience for our country's supply chains, have to get to work to combat what I think is mostly uh unfair practices uh from China. And with respect to cri- uh critical minerals, you talk about uh a eye-opening and sobering statement when the Communist Chinese Party says, we are willing to put export controls and basically lock us out of what is effectively a hundred percent of refining these critical minerals and and more than half of mining them what would that do to our nation's economy and security, and how vulnerable are we at this point? So, I don't know that there's a more important conversation. I completely respect and appreciate President Trump's leadership on an area that I think we were all asleep at the wheel on, all of us. As Americans, we love getting cheap stuff. And as long as we were getting cheap stuff, and we were fat and happy, you know, we were just gonna keep whistling past the graveyard until President Trump showed up and said, we're not going to be ripped off anymore. And the America First trade policy, uh, while it is in part leveling the playing field in a rules-based world trade order, which there is no free trade without enforced rules-based competition. I think the center pole in the tent here for the America first trade is we have, as we say in Texas, Houston, we have a problem and it is a massive uh and sinister uh uh uh national security uh prospect ahead of us. So um I guess the the question without going through the the things that I think the president and this administration is doing that is the right approach to this, I would ask you all, how can we as members of Congress, Republican and Democrats, encourage more refining uh capacity and companies to make that investment while you have highly subsidized Chinese uh refiners who are dumping a bunch of cheap product in the market place. So what what do we do um in in that reality? You know, I'm a free market guy, but this is about national security and you got American companies competing against sovereign nation states that are willing to uh subsidize in part if not in whole this endeavor, because they know whoever holds the you know whoever has the gold makes the rules or whatever you said earlier yeah they get it it's a big stick man it's a big stick and it's concerning what do we do give me your best advice um i i'm looking across and i can't even read your your your but doctor brazilian

you got fifteen seconds to answer that quickly

doctor brazilian i'm sorry i didn't see brazilian you if you'd answer this question for all your panelists i know you speak for all of them

indeed four seconds um focus on supply chains um, work with partners and, uh, make sure that we're paying for these things at an appropriate price.

Miss Chiu.

There is broad agreement that America needs to strengthen our critical mineral supply chains. It's important for our economy and our national security. But if the federal government is going to spend billions of taxpayer dollars doing it, the public deserves to know where that money is going and who. is benefiting. That question matters even more when you look at what this administration's policies are costing American families. Trump's central economic promise was to lower costs. He's delivered the opposite. The average household is paying more than thirty-eight hundred dollars extra because of his policies. And while American families are being asked to pay more, Trump's family and other politically connected insiders appear positioned to profit from critical minerals projects backed by billions in taxpayer dollars. Miss St. Louis, your testimony highlights multiple reported instances in which the financial interests of President Trump's family or other senior administration officials overlap with companies benefiting from federal critical minerals policy. Can you walk us through the most concerning example and explain what it tells us about potential conflicts of interest and how taxpayer dollars could be used for private enrichment. And and how does this hurt the average American, especially in their cost of living?

Thank you for the question. Well, in in my testimony I mentioned reporting uh from a a deal related to Kazakhstan Tungsten um project. And I think the time-line is important to go through to kind of of of what happened, uh, in, or, and what we still do not know. You know, I think in in late twenty twenty four, Donald Trump junior and Eric Trump joined a Dominary Securities Advisory Board, and they acquired stock in that company. And then in April of twenty twenty five, Commerce Secretary Lutnik wrote to Kazakhstan's president, supporting Kove Kaz, which was a proposal to develop two Tungsten operations and to urge timely approval of those of those operations. And in the summer of twenty twenty-five, EXIM and DFC issued preliminary non-binding letters of interest for up to one point six billion in potential financing for the Kazakhstan Tungsten project project. Then in August of twenty twenty-five, Donald Trump Junior and Eric Trump invested in skyline builders through that dominary linked vehicle. And then in September, Kazakhstan's president reportedly told President Trump that Kazakhstan planned to award the Tungsten project to Kove Kaz. So, and Kove's chief executive said the company received direct ex- assistance from President Trump, the secretary of state Marco Rubio, and Lutnik for that. In October, the Trump sons increased their Sky Skyline investment. And that was on October twenty eighth. On October thirty first, Skyline agreed to pay twenty million for a twenty percent stake in the Cove Capital subsidiary that was connected to the project. And then on November sixth, Lutnant signed a final agreement with Kazakhstan, and CoveCas res- obtained seventy percent interest in the Tungsten venture. And then also in November of twenty twenty five, Lutnik and Kazakhstan industry ministers signed this broader MOU on critical minerals, which we have not seen.

And uh how does this hurt the American, the average American?

Well, I think at at a time when um we there there is an affordability crisis, what we're seeing is a trade policy that is benefiting billionaires um and politically connected individuals. And I think what our trade policy should be doing and what is being claimed to be doing is benefiting US workers but we're seeing uh manufacturing jobs continuing to be offshored. We're seeing um a an affordability crisis at a time when there are giveaways to some of the um largest uh billionaires in the country.

And um, well, let me ask a a short question. Doctor Bhaskara, and I know you've talked about the importance of the US-Canada relationship. I read your C CIS analysis, in fact, in which you said we should have a formal early action mechanism with Canada. And does this, what happens, what is the consequence of a fifty percent tariff with Canada in a second, if you can say?

Thank you, Congresswoman. Obviously, Canada is one of our most important minerals partner. It was our biggest source of minerals last year. We saw between twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five, there was a nine percent decline in min mineral imports, so we have seen the impacts of volatile tariff policy and getting it right with Canada will be very important.

Thank you, Mister, Mister Hearn.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Critical minerals are essential to our economy, our defense industrial base, and our national security. And from advanced semiconductors and batteries to air aircraft missiles and other defense systems. United States cannot afford to have these supply chains vulnerable to foreign adversaries. China has an enormous advantage across the critical mineral supply chain in mining but particularly in processing and refining. And according to the International Energy Agency, China holds a leading refining position in nineteen of the twenty strategic minerals for rare earths gallium and germanium. China's processing capacity exceeds ninety percent. That level of control is a national security vulnerability. China doesn't need to control the entire supply chain, they just need to control the critical choke point that can be shut off at any time. This is not a passive threat. The CCP is rapidly expanding its influence and control across the globe and that threat is getting closer to home. On a trip to South America with some of my colleagues on this committee we saw a deep water port built in Peru by China. In exchange, China is allowed to dock any ships, On another trip in Central America, we saw soccer stadiums built by China in exchange for ending trade relations with Taiwan China is bribing their way to control and encroaching on our backyard. That is why it is more essential than ever that we bolster our national security supply chain to ensure our adversaries cannot control our access to critical minerals and other materials that are necessary for our national defense. President Trump has been working to advance our domestic supply of critical minerals since the day one of his presidency. As we work to prop up our domestic capacity, we must simultaneously work with countries that share our economic and security interests. The proposed agreements on trade in critical minerals put forth by the administration offer an interim solution to our growing dependence on China. Successful agreements could help create an integrated resilient supply chain and provide alternative sources for critical minerals as producers work to increase domestic productivity. Building strategic partnerships with mineral-producing nations across Central Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Indo-Pacific will help ensure the U. S.'s diversified, reliable access to resources we need while reducing China's weaponized dominance over global supply chains. The proposed agreements could also help hinder China's ability to flood global markets with subsidized materials, drive prices below the cost of Western production, and discourage investment in alternative sources. China produces roughly sixty percent of the global germanium supply and dominates the market through subsidies and strict export controls. I recently visited a germanium facility in Quapaw, Oklahoma, in very rural Oklahoma, one of only three in the United States. The UMAcore facility uses a high-efficiency recycling process which allows it to vastly decrease the input materials needed to refine germanium. Still, they will not be able to compete if or when China floods the market again with subsidized germanium. Securing our critical mineral supply chain is not about isolating America from global markets. It is about ensuring that no adversary, no adversary, has the ability to shut down critical American industries or threaten our national security. Doctor Brazilian, where do you see these vulnerabilities in our national security supply chain with regard to critical minerals and how can the US leverage its domestic capacity in partnerships with our allies to address these vulnerabilities.

Thank you, Congressman. Um, as uh uh I've written extensively on these, one thing I'd like to bring into the conversation is that it's very difficult to try to address all of the critical minerals as a homogenous group, because they're they're not. And so our the way we construct what is a critical mineral is a f uh f fundamentally from a supply side perspective, where does this stuff come from and do we like the country, we have to make that assessment much more sophisticated and look below the surface. So we used to have a list of thirty-five minerals, then it went to fifty, and now it's at sixty. If it keeps going, we have the entire periodic table. And so each of these minerals has a different contour, it has different scale, it has different market, sometimes they're primary, sometimes they're secondary, et cetera. And so I think your example of germanium there is an excellent one, and one where the supply chain actually isn't all that complicated, and we can address it. But we're gonna have to do this on a bespoke manner.

I- if I may, um, in this meeting uh with the group in Umacor, who's owned by a Belgian company, China will come in and crush the market or come back in and drop it to a third of the cost, run them out of business again. and then expect us to sit there and be without germanium, which is very critical to our optics. Mr. Chairman, I go back.

Miss Miller.

Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this hearing, the issues that we're discussing today are so crucial to securing our supply chains and restoring American manufacturing dominance. I just returned from my second visit to Central America with Chairman Smith. This morning I was awake wide awake at four, yesterday was one thirty, I mean, it's gonna take me a little while to get used to it, but I was so glad that my chairman and my colleagues were had the opportunity to experience the beauty and the progress in central Asia, and I hope that they discovered a new found urgency in the deepening of our relationships with these nations. We should not have conversation about diversifying our supply chains for critical minerals, without Central Asia. Mister Herbst, you mentioned in your testimony that Kazakhstan is the world's largest uranium producer ranks third globally in titanium production and has the second largest manganese reserves and has approximately thirty six million tons of copper reserves. Similarly, Uzbekistan has reserves of tungsten, lithium, manganese and other critical minerals with its mineral resource potential estimated at five point seven trillion dollars. The United States is one hundred percent import reliant on several of these minerals, and in some cases that reliance is on China. Central Asian nations are eager to forge deeper relationships and partnerships with the United States and they're actively seeking investments from American companies the new leaders in these countries have worked tirelessly to make economic and social reforms to enter the global economy. They they really feel that they're on the right track, acting like democracies. President Trump has made significant efforts to renew American engagements in these regions. It's therefore high time, to quote you, Congress takes affirmative steps to cement the United States as a key strategic business partner for Central Asia. The Jackson Vanek amendment is sending the wrong signal. It's an outdated remnant of the Cold War, and it's forcing our investors to deal with these nations at an arm's length and allowing China and Russia to continue their economic dominance in the region. I have introduced legislation with my friend Congressman Panetta to lift Jackson Vanek for all Central Asian nations, and I urge my colleagues from across the aisle to support this initiative. Every day that Congress doesn't act on this is a day that we are deepening our dependence on China and neglecting an untapped potential in Central Asia. Ambassador Herbst, can you speak plainly on why Jackson VanEck needs to be lifted for Central Asian nations, and what the immediate positive effects could be? And can you also speak to the progress these nations have made that will ensure security of investments in the region?

Uh, thank you very much for your advocacy of this very sensible idea. Uh, we have a a problem which I think this committee recognizes, that two large nations consider us its principal adversary, Russia and China, and China in particular, which which has a world class economy, and which has established its stranglehold over critical and rare earth minerals is using this very much to our disadvantage. Uh, the Central Asian countries, um, live in a very dangerous neighborhood, right? China on the one side, Russia on the other, Iran on a third. And they want the economic, political, and even the security advantages of a closer relationship with us. Given the dangers we face from China's control over the, again, critical and rare earths, it's essential for us to develop all the uh, sources of supply, of which these nations have a fair amount. And it's true that the political and economic practices in Central Asia are not wonderful. It's also true, as you've pointed out, that we've seen serious step towards reform in Uzbekistan since uh Mirziyoyev took over, my goodness, ten years ago. And we've seen steps forward under um, Tukhaev. in Kazakhstan and we have something to work with. Doesn't mean it's always going to be pretty. Doesn't mean that there aren't human rights abuses there. But those human rights problems will only improve by closer partnership with us. And again, we have to worry about our own security. I wish that our policy across the world was as clear in recognizing the dangers posed to us by an aggressive China and an aggressive Russia, as demonstrated by this committee. But we need to work on that. And we need to address this absolutely critical rare earth problem that we have. I have no doubt that despite our um laggard position today, if the administration and Congress, multiple administrations and multiple congresses work together on this as a high priority we can improve our circumstances dramatically. and reduce our vulnerability. But this requires major effort.

Thank you, Ambassador.

Thank you.

Yes.

Mister Nill.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, I would like to have my opening statement submitted for the record.

Without objection.

Thank you.

Um, Miss uh Miss DelBene?

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Um And thanks to all of our witnesses for being with us today. We appreciate it. Um, I think we all share a bipartisan goal of ensuring reliable US access to these vital, vital minerals. And um, critical minerals are essential for our national security, our economy, and our global leadership. But I am stunned that some of my colleagues across the aisle are silent about President Trump destroying our relationship with Canada, one of our most important partners on mineral security. Canadian potash, aluminum, nickel, other critical minerals already support our farmers, aerospace, energy and advanced manufacturing sectors. Canada is investing millions in new mining capabilities that could be key to breaking our dependence on China for critical minerals. When Trump started a trade feud with China, he only backed down when China weaponized our dependence on their critical minerals, and he should be more motivated than anyone to vert to diversify our supply. But instead, Trump's trade war is only motivating Canadian businesses to find new buyers abroad. Uh, they're diversifying away from the US, and they've concluded dozens of critical mineral deals since the start of Trump's term. The president cannot claim to be taking critical mure- minerals seriously while actively undermining our partnership with Canada. And you don't have to take my word for it. Um, and, Mister Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record this article from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, uh, entitled " Canada May Be the United States' Best Hope for Mineral Security".

So object, or so ordered.

Thank you. Um, Doctor Baskerin, uh, you have written extensively about how tariffs on Canada undermine mineral security uh in the United States. Could you walk us through some of the impacts of the ongoing trade war with Canada on US access to critical minerals?

Thank you so much Congresswoman for your attention to this very important trade relationship. Canada is our top source of non-fuel minerals, and what we see is that the trade war is already undermining our supply chain security. We saw that between twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five, mineral imports from Canada actually fell by nine percent. That was disproportionately felt by uranium, about thirty, it dropped by about thirty percent. Obviously we are still remain, we remain reliant on adversarial uranium from Russia and are desperately trying to re- reduce our dependence. Canadian uranium is therefore crucial to keeping our lights on, given that a fifth of our power mix is nuclear energy. You also saw there was a fourteen percent drop in aluminum, again, aluminum crucial for our uh re-industrialization effort. So at a time when we're trying to reduce our reliance on China, we're certainly not gonna be able to do it without China and Canada, and it is imperative that we get this right.

Uh, thank you for that. Uh, Canada's negotiating many new deals to source and sell critical minerals elsewhere. Um, I wondered if you could also talk about what are some of the repercussions for future administrations that wanna renegotiate critical mineral access with Canada after this trade war given that they're making other deals.

The reality is that mineral offtake agreements are much longer than a political cycle, so the decisions that we make today cannot be undone in a short span of time. In fact, what Canada is pursuing is an aggressive trade uh diversion program. They wanna double their exp non-U S exports. So everyone el- our loss is gonna be everyone else's gain, and we need to think about that long-term stability of trade to ensure that that those off-take agreements are no longer uh out of our hands.

Uh, thank you for that, this uh president has been doing lasting damage to our relationships abroad and families see this damage at the grocery store with tariffs, affordability crisis across the country, farmers see it when they buy fuel and fertilizer, spiking farm bankruptcy rates, and our national security suffers when we fail to partner with Canada on critical minerals. Uh, Mister Chairman, I'd also like to uh briefly conclude by asking unanimous consent to enter into the record the August twenty sixth twenty twenty six associat- associated press article entitled " Trump says the US doesn't need Canada, the economy says otherwise".

So, orden.

Uh, thank you um, thank you again. I yield back.

Recognize myself for five minutes. Thank you all come, for coming so much. I think this has been an excellent hearing. My only problem is I have a little PTSD now. We're talking all about the periodic chart and it takes me back on my pre-medical studies. So, thank you for like bringing those memories, those wonderful memories back. You know, when we uh, members of Congress, when we come in here and swear an oath to the Constitution, we do this in the name of making sure that our nation is secure. secure for the sake of freedom. And we don't have security if we don't have um the ability to compute, we don't have the ability to uh communicate, we don't have the ability to stand up militarily. These are just basic tenets of what we've had. So, this discussion today has been excellent. I think there's uniformity um with the committee, making sure that we're trying to have a longer term uh, a Goa-like agreement, so I'm wanting the same thing with hope uh, help in Haiti. we need long-term agreements, this is what China does on a long term, we're hindered somewhat by our own ability just that we fact that we do things in four year increments uh which is a challenge to us. Uh but I think this is again a a mean of bipartisan support with this. So I I wanna follow up just on a couple um comments that have been made earlier, because I think this discussion really has been excellent. Uh Mister Rundi, you pointed out that we have to show up. We absolutely have to show up, I was in Zambia last year and the president there said the Chinese are there but we wanna we wanna work with you. It is just really a part about showing up. Um, but Doctor Bhaskaran, I I wanna hone down a little bit on our vulnerability. And, you know, there were a few silver linings that occurred during, uh, the pandemic. Um, and our, it was our vulnerability to supply chains, absolutely, especially with, you know, being in medicine, uh, with our medical supply chains, but so much again going back on national security. And I really wanna get down on our data centers, because, um, I, I think we, people, the American

Thanks so much, Congressman. Our economy is not gonna keep pace,

Mm.

certainly not gonna remain the world's leading economy if we don't get on the data center wagon but one of our crucial impediments to becoming a force at data centers is actually our mineral supply when you look across the spectrum at the amount of minerals you need um to keep pace we're looking at between a fifty and a four hundred percent increase for critical minerals including copper, barium, antimony, silver, tin, so it is a huge driver. Now the second thing I would say is we are struggling to make these projects economic. And right now we have done incredible supply side efforts, but we need demand side efforts. We need to make sure those minerals have an end sector to go into, and that will increase the prices of these minerals. So data centers will be a crucial driver of that demand. So we need to think about it both through a strategic competition lens and keeping pace but also with this is a way to make economic supply chains.

Yeah, so uh uh uh uh excellent. Does it, do any of you on the panel think that China's

I I would think so. I mean, it seems like they they do all sorts of dirty stuff, and so I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did that. I

Yeah, you know, I'm I met with some of our national security experts last month when we had a couple of seminars about data centers, and I asked hard questions because that's what a lot of the American public is asking what is this gonna do to my community what is it gonna do to water supply what's it gonna do to energy supply and uniformly There is so much misinformation that's going on out there about this. You know, I'm told that they use as much water as a car wash. This is what I'm told. Same thing, they're bringing their own energy supply. So I, again, we go back to where our primary role here is, it's national security, in whatever form it is, again, economic, communications, um, uh, militarily, and it is just critical that we have the computing tools that we need, um, to move that mission forward. Um, do- doctor, uh, Brazilian, just want to ask a couple questions. I uh, Mister Schweikart asked a little bit earlier, but I wanna follow back up on this stuff. You know, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, meaning that we can resource our minerals in the United States, making sure that again around the world that we're paying attention to human rights, environmental concerns. Do we have the capability in of critical min minerals or is this something that we're just gonna have to outsource?

Um, we have the uh uh ability and the resources in the country to m- meet almost all of our needs. more a matter of uh the economics around that and the prioritization uh to the topic.

I- is it economics, is it environmental concerns? Uh what is the biggest primary impediment?

Um i- i- it's probably prioritization and how you prioritize that from an economic perspective across the economy.

Alright, thank you. I'll yield back, recognize Mister Kustolf.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, thank you to the witnesses for appearing today, and Doctor Baskwin, if I c- I could with you uh two unrelated questions. If you could point Congress towards two or three minerals to prioritize in our engagement with the AGOA uh eligible countries, what would they, what would they be and why?

I would start to think about the minerals where Africa has an absolute advantage, not just a comparative advantage. So when I think about those, the first one I think about is platinum group metals. Eighty percent of platinum group metals sit in Africa, the next two are Zimbabwe and Russia which are arguably even more complicated than South Africa. The reality is is that platinum is crucial for automotive manufacturing, that palladium is crucial for semiconductor manufacturing, and you don't have a lot of alternative options. The second thing that I would think about is I would think about our military grade vanadium. There are only two major mines that supply the United States for that. One is in Brazil and it's struggling with financial solvency, the other one again is in Africa. So how do we support that military grade Vanadium? Because there are not a lot of options outside of China, and so we need to think more crucially about how to make those that project more economically viable. And the third one I would think about, which I think most of us in this room think about at some level, are rare earths, because Africa is emerging as a next frontier. Four of the top ten jurisdictions in the world in twenty twenty four were in, for exploration in Africa. So the next wave, and whether those projects go to China or whether they go to the United States, is going to be determined by decisions made in the next three years.

Thank you very much. So, unrelated, in in your written testimony you had several policy recommendations. If I could, I wanted to ask you about one of them, and that relates to tariffs, uh, the section where you recommended ensure the US tariff policy rewards rather than penalizes mineral value in addition, uh, addition in partner countries. So if you could wave a magic wand, what would that look like?

Absolutely. I would make our tariffs congruent for upstream and downstream. So right now if I take copper and I process it, it hits zero, it hits between zero and three percent coming from many African countries. But the second I turn it into a manufactured good, a rod, a plate, it goes up to fifty percent. So it renders completely uneconomic by the time it gets to a port in the United States.

Thank you very much. Uh, Mister Rundi, I kn- I know you were quoted by the chairman earlier, uh, from prior tests, but I do I do wanna ask you something about your

I do. Mm. Mm.

testimony and your and your written testimony where you say that we should not ask Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan to choose between the United States, China and Russia, we should make sure they have choices and make the American choice more attractive. So, um, tell me how you would do that, or how we would do that.

Well, this, as I said, this committee has in its power to remove the irritant in our relationship with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which is the Jackson-Vanik rules. This is a it was this committee did a really wonderful thing in the nineteen seventies when you all voted and created the Jackson-Vanik sanctions on the Soviet Union but the Soviet Union ended in nineteen ninety-one, Congressman, and it's been thirty-five years and so we're using a twentieth century uh set of uh sanctions when We've got we need a twenty first century partnership with these countries and the thing is um they want deeper partnerships with us on technology, they want our investment in terms of energy investment and minerals investment, they'd like us to be a a bigger investor in infrastructure in that part of the world, that that part of the world is the belt buckle on the belt and road. So they can't choose their neighbors. They're stuck next to China and Russia, some of them abut China and some are kinda next to you you you get the idea, they're in a tough neighborhood. Um, but they can do a better job at choosing their friends, but we gotta be a friend. So being a friend, Congressman, means we gotta if we one way to show we're a friend is to remove this significant irritant. It's humiliating and it's annoying and we don't humiliate and annoy friends.

In my eleven seconds, uh, in your opinion, if we remove Jackson, Vanek, do we become the most attractive option? Does the United States become the most attractive option?

No, but we can, it starts us on our way. We need to have, take a ten or ten year view of saying let's, let's make that our goal, Congressman. That's a great goal.

Thank you very much. I yield back.

Gentlemen, uh, Mister Larson is recognized.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chairman. Mister Chairman, I'd simply like to submit for the record, um,

uh these rem remarks and also uh uh commend Mister Neal on his great victory last evening.

So I'd recognize Miss Moore.

Thank you so much, Mister Chairman, and I wanna thank all of our panelists and our colleagues for very vigorous um teach-in um about our trade policy. I I I am embarrassed to say that I don't know who to go to because you all have rendered such uh great expertise and knowledge on the subject, but I think perhaps I'll start with uh with Miss St. Louis and maybe Doctor uh Bhaskaran can weigh in um if she wants. I was reading through your testimony, Miss um St. Louis, And you indicated that the eleven bilateral agreements and the ten MOUs that have already been signed by the president, um, with these countries have been done, uh, in a way that lacks transparency and really invites corruption. Uh, I am particularly interested, um, in the, um, uh, in two things, the XM bank ac- activity which creates the US strategic critical minerals program, uh, and the, uh, what's happening in DRC with the strategic asset reserve. Uh, my concern is is that while there's a lot of rhetoric around building out the infrastructure in Central Asia, in Africa, so that they can process and benefit, they can process their own minerals, uh, so as to not depend on China to do it. It seems to me, if I'm wrong, that these initiatives, um, uh, would mean that the United States would basically, s- particularly in the US strategic critical minerals, uh, thing, use the XM Bank to really sort of hoard these um unprocessed minerals counter intuitive to what our stated goals are. Am I wrong, have I read this wrong, Ms. St. Louis?

Um, th- thank you for the question, I um, we, as I mentioned in in our report, we are very concerned that the lack of transparency in the MOUs and the deals that are being made with, and projects being made with the specific uh companies in in DRC and elsewhere, need much more oversight to m- ensure that we are um achieving goals and that they aren't supporting uh corrupt or um or damaging mining practices. Uh, what we saw in the um the twenty twenty-six NDAA is that the scope of the DFC, for example, that was increased four-fold, uh from sixty billion to two hundred f- two hundred and five billion, in terms of its contingency liability cap, the amount that it can disburse in loans. Uh and, and we also have seen increases with with XM. And if these projects fail, the taxpayers may be left holding the bag. They threw unpaid loans or equity losses while private investors uh may have ap- captured all the upside um and taxpayers really should not be bearing all the downside risk while private investors keep all the upside profit and reward um and as I mentioned earlier I think this is even more concerning because the administration uh waived the security and exchange commission disclosure disclosure requirements for projects backed by federal funding. So uh I I think this is and and what we've seen in the true strategic acts

Yeah.

um reserve in the drc is that this is a secretive reserve that the that is co-governed by us officials and congolese officials and

ok can i can i just intervene here

we can mmm

uh let me just ask you um are there is it given that there are many of these countries i'll just pick ukraine for example that signed these agreements into rest do you think that there are any wto violations uh the people will complain uh and also just how do we get out of these deals um if yeah are they permanent are they sealed uh what can we do

well um in these minerals for security arrangements like the ukraine uh deal and uh the the drc deal there are you know binding commitments that they made that basically um give over their sovereignty over their own strategic resources in exchange, you know, hold- withholding potential aid from the perspective of the, of the US. And I think that, that is, um, a huge concern. And in terms of their durability, these are being executed as executive agreements. I think because they're being, uh, pushed under duress, countries are going to try to, uh, move get out of them um when there's a change so i'll i'll leave it there

General Lady's time is expired.

Thank thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you, Miss St. Louis.

Thank you. Recognized uh gentleman from Florida, Mister Stuebe

Thank you, Mister Chairman. China's dominance over critical minerals and the processing capacity needed to turn those resources into usable products presents a serious threat to our economic and national security as we work to reduce that dependence I believe we should focus on building secure supply chains that strengthen American production support our defense industrial base and ensure the United States is never dependent on an adversary for resources essential to our national security. We have already seen China demonstrate it, that it is willing to use its dominance over critical minerals as leverage. In your view, and I'll open it up to Mr. Rundi first. In your view, what is the single most important thing the United States can do now to ensure that Beijing cannot hold our economy and our military hostage through these supply chains in the future?

Thank you, that's a great question. I'd say a couple of things. One is, uh I'll repeat myself about Jackson Bannock. Past Jackson Bannock is a is a great first step, but regarding uh other other steps, I think we should be thinking about we we on our own can't solve the minerals problem. We have to work with partners. We have to, whether it's Africa or Central Asia, w- the Western hemisphere has a lot of uh minerals. I think Doctor Bhaskara's point about uh creating new uh processing alternatives i think it's gonna be really hard to develop a lot of processing here in the united states we're gonna have to have a lot of processing in other parts of the world so we need to find those partnerships and work with them central asia is a place we can do that western hemisphere is a place we can do processing so we need to do what we can to process here but we also be thinking about how we process with our partners central asia

central asia has significant reserves of uranium copper tungsten

has significant reserves of uranium copper tungsten

antimony and other critical minerals, but the region is geographically surrounded by Russia and China and has historically depended heavily on both countries. Ambassador Herbst, given your experience in Central Asia, these countries obviously cannot change their geography or the fact that they border Russia and China. What can the United States do to make ourselves the more attractive economic and strategic partner in that region?

Just microphone. Oops. Thank you. Jackson Vatican is an obstacle. But also we we should be actively enhancing our diplomacy. I think President Trump is doing this in his administration, to reach out and establish a closer relationship. They they do see us as a counterpoise to both Russia and China. And we should do this actively, but also with nuance, because they do have to worry about kinetic action by the Chinese or the Russians, if we are seen as being too active, especially on the security side. But we should also be willing to engage with them to enhance, for example, border security, domestic security, so that China and Russia are not the only options for that. That's absolutely critical and they want it. It's absolutely critical.

How important is developing alternative transportation and trade routes that allow Central Asian resources to reach the United States and our allies, without depending on Russia and China?

Well, Central Asia is landlocked. Um, and that's this is their great this is their great problem. And Kazakhstan has developed this concept of a middle corridor, and that's to get their products into and out of Europe. And we now have the um Trump uh corridor in the South Caucasus, a direct result of strong administration diplomacy between Armenia and Azerbaijan promoting peace there. And this will naturally link up to the Kazakhstan middle corridor. This will enhance again peace in the South Caucasus, ability of Central Asian products to move to world markets without China and Russia, and the United States has a critical role. This enhances our our position in the in Central Asia and in the South Caucasus.

China has spent decades using state-backed financing and infrastructure investments to expand its influence in mineral-rich regions around the world. Mr. Rundi, what advantage does the United States have in competing with China's state-backed model, Particularly when we are able to bring American private investment to the table.

Thank you. I think it was very important that we reauthorize the DFC and raise the credit card limit. I also think it's very important we reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank. So there are some tools that the Congress Congress has taken action on the DFC to for the good on this. We also uh you have in in front of you the Congress will be looking at reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank. I think we should do that. But we also have America's capital markets. We have deep pools of private capital. Uh, and so I think we should be finding ways to partner with deep pools of American and allied private capital to invest. And they these countries want more American investment. They want more inv- they're hungry for it. So some of it's about diplomacy, as Ambassador Herbst has been talking about. And so I also think the sort of steps that your committee can do on Jackson Bannock say makes it saying we're we want we're gonna be coming, we're gonna be investing more. Thank you.

General, his time's expired.

Yep.

General Leidy from New York, Miss Tenney is recognized.

Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Neal, for convening this important meeting to discuss the importance of seeking U.S. access to critical minerals thr- minerals throughout strategic partnerships. Uh, just as oil was the defining resource security challenge of the twentieth century access to critical minimal minerals will define the twenty-first century um as the witness and uh witnesses and many of our colleagues have noted China has a stranglehold on many of our critical minerals, and in particular processing those minerals. The US cannot win the twenty-first century without breaking free of China's control of these critical minerals. Uh, while we must continue to invest in US capacity and expand US mining, the reality is that we cannot defeat the challenge alone. Cooperation with strategic partners, such as those in Africa and Central Asia, and is essential to reducing our reliance on China. Um, it's why I strongly support the two-year extension of the African Growth and Opportunities Act. to strengthen the economic cooperation with our African allies. Further, uh, that is why I also support the US Kazakhstan Trade Modernization Act, which would remove Kazakhstan from the Jackson-Vanik amendment and allow permanent normal trade relations with Kazakhstan. Uh, we cannot continue, uh, to unnecessarily hamstring ourselves in the pursuit of critical miracles, or China will not only win the race, they will control our destiny. I first want to ask a question, uh, to Doctor Bazilian. Uh, you discussed in your written testimony the fact that despite Australia mining sufficient bauxite, the refining capacity to turn bauxite into alumina is largely concentrated in China. Uh, what ways can the US work with our allies and partners to develop greater bauxite refining capacity outside of China?

Thanks very much. Well, we have to get started, which is what we've done. And I think using the um the uh under the bilateral agreement with Australia, it's been very uh a very powerful tool, and we saw it most recently in the investment in the Scandiam mine uh also in Australia, which is uh uh uh a material that's um needed across the military and uh other domains. So I I I think getting started and the the the tools under your purview help that very much. Um y- your question though is the right one, which is high praise from an academic, which is to say that um which is to say that w- we we have to treat these various minerals and metals, uh individually across their supply chains. If we tr- try to treat them as a homogenous analogy to say oil, we will not get the policies right. So I would encourage us to to keep moving.

Well, let me ask you on that because, uh, I have Novellis in my district. Uh, it operates the a large secondary aluminum smelter. It relies on recycled scrap mostly. I toured recently their restart after they had uh multiple fires, uh, and and a number of issues there, but uh, and they produce uh the ingots uh ingots. Uh, and one of the challenges they face is this usable aluminum scrap is being exported directly to China or to third-party countries that ultimately

Yes, Yes, um, um, uh, uh, uh, uh recycling is absolutely a critical and part of the supply chain. recycling is absolutely a critical and part of the supply chain. Um, um, what i said earlier congresswoman is that um you you only really are motivated to recycle things when you have advanced manufacturing nearby and so as an example you see recycling in batteries or photovoltaics much more heavily in those places like china or in parts of southeast asia that actually manufacture those things so doing the policy without having the advanced manufacturing won't work

so do you think we can have an restrictions on that was my question uh is that something that you would support or you think we should c- should support from an academic viewpoint into how we act in congress

yeah i'm i'm sorry uh congresswoman that's not my uh area of expertise

thank you uh just i just have a few seconds left and one quick question uh i wanted to ask uh doctor doctor uh under your you mentioned briefly in your testimony about the export import bank and growing capacity in developing countries Um, as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I've seen and heard how uh the XM Bank and the US D- International Development Financing uh Corporation are in the development, through Asian countries. Can you speak a little bit about how the, I know you have already, but I'd just like to hear again on the, how the XM Bank, International Development Finance Corp, play a direct role in US supporting critical minerals in strengthening our US soft power abroad and I'm out of time, but if you could just answer in five seconds.

Thanks so much, Congresswoman. They play an incredible role in backing these projects. Obviously, Chinese projects have succeeded through incredible amounts of state-backed capital. And EXIM and DFC are making projects aligned to US interests with US off-take bankable, and it c- we can't level with China without these institutions.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I yield.

Gentleman from California is recognized, Mr. Panetta.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and I wanna obviously thank all of the witnesses uh for being here today, and I wanna thank Chairman Smith for calling all of you talk about, an issue that has been important to me, an issue that is important to the United States of America. Um, and so I appreciate this hearing and I appreciate the Chairman's recent travels, just last week to the Central Asian States region to get boots on the ground, as well as his first question today to the Ambassador, um, when he, uh, a question that he raised to me when I first brought up Jackson Vanek to the Chairman a few years ago and I appreciate the Ambassador's answer that China is not Kazakhstan. and that we should have seen that. Uh, instead, countries like Kazakhstan and other Central Asian States are working hard to be the partners of the United States, and working hard to live up to our values. So that taking small steps like removing the Jackson-Vanik amendment would be a huge step to help not just our partner countries, but it would help the United States. It doesn't cost us anything, yet we gain so much, especially when it comes to access and supply chains for rare earth minerals, but also to be frank our credibility here in the United States Congress. So obviously thanks to the witnesses and their testimony, testimony not just about trade but how we can work with the right partners to expand trade. Over the past few years what we've seen is that relying on countries like China and Russia for rare earths create serious vulnerabilities for our supply chains, our economy and our national security. We can't just think financially, but we must think strategically about where we source. these critical materials and the global relationships we need to build reliable resilient supply chains. That is why I was particularly pleased to see so many of you highlight the importance of ending the application of the Jackson-Wenner amendment, as it applies to our partners in Central Asia, yes, especially Kazakhstan. And especially based on the bipartisan work that has been done in this committee, to do this with with Miss Miller, Mister Swazi, Mister Lohoud, Mister Beyer and a few more, uh and and obviously my work uh as the author of the US Kazakhstan Trade Modernization Act that would specifically remove Jackson Vanek from Kazakhstan. As several of you noted, the Jackson Vanek was enacted as part of the Trade Act of nineteen seventy-four for a very specific purpose to respond to the restrictions on Jewish emigration and religious freedoms in the Soviet Union, a provision that is clearly outdated, antiqu antiquicate antiquicated and irrelevant, especially for Kazakhstan. An example of this is something that I saw personally in Almaty, where there's the grave of Chabad leader Rabbi Schneerson, where tens of thousands of Jews travel to each year to pay respects. So Jackson Vanik is not just archaic, it was never intended to become a permanent barrier to normal trade relations, or a bargaining chip for unrelated concessions three decades after the Soviet Union is dissolved. Jackson Vanik was a way to address human rights in the Soviet Union. something that is addressed today through other laws that we have in place. So rather than rely on hoary stories of a bygone era to evoke emotions, I would ask my colleagues to look at the evidence, especially evidence taken by President Tokayev of Kazakhstan to prevent human rights violations and to live up to our democratic values. Concrete steps to demonstrate Kazakhstan's commitment to a fair and open country following a rules-based international order, reforming law enforcement and a justice system, especially when it comes to domestic violent prosecution, and he even limited his executive power with a single seven-year presidential term, something I can tell you, we all can tell you, that neighboring authoritarian leaders are averse to. Now the current Trump administration, I get it. It's demonstrated the dangers of using trade tools for purposes that were never designed to serve. And yes, we have seen trade authorities stretched well beyond their intended purposes. We understand that. But that's why Congress needs to ensure that our trade tools are fit for purpose and advance a coherent economic national security strategy. That means reasserting congressional's authority over trade under Article one, section eight. And that starts, I believe, with removing outdated barriers like Jackson Vanek that no longer serve the objectives that Congress created them to achieve. Now Kazakhstan, as we know, has basically taken these considerable steps, not just to live up to democratic values, but to deepen its economic relation with the United States. This is in despite of the difficult geography where it's at. It's a member of the WTO since twenty fifteen and since the nineteen nineties, Kazakhstan has been approved for waivers of the Jackson-Mannic Amendment each year by proving with evidence that it complies with freedom of emigre emigration requirements in order to maintain normal trade relations. Doctor Bazilian, has Kazakhstan at any point since the nineties failed to meet Jackson Vanek's freedom of immigration requirements.

I do not know.

That is why removing Jackson Vanek, you don't know? Uh, and does anybody know? Please, Doctor, Mister Rundi.

No, they've never had they've always demonstrated that they have no problems with the conditions that pro prompted Jackson Vanek. It's not an issue.

Exactly. Thank you. And that is why I believe Jackson Vanek is one of the many reasons why it should be removed. clearest, lowest cost signal that the U. S. is a serious partner, not just in trade but in many other areas, and that Congress is serious about our constitutional authorities over trade.

Gentleman's time has expired.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Gentleman from Iowa is recognized, Mr. Feinster.

Um, it's I'm really excited that, uh, we've, uh, have two year authorization of a go-ahead. This is really important. I think, uh, it creates an opportunity for us to move forward. I spent the last month um going to a lot of Asian countries from um Japan to South Korea, Taiwan, I was in the uh in Europe talking with Germany and and uh Italy and and the UK and you name it, and they're all saying the same thing, literally the same thing that we are, we have to find solutions to uh critical minerals. And it's not so much critical minerals, refining of them. We there's places all over the world, we found that in Africa, right? Africa has all these minerals. It's fantastic. We can mine them, but can we refine them? And this is to me the biggest issue. And I'd like to talk to you, Doctor Baskaran, about this. How do we move forward when it comes to refining? I mean, well, I think we can get the minerals, but the refining is the biggest issue. And and when you talk about Paxillica, when we talk about uh ACTM, um the multi- uh lateral trade agreements and stuff like that, That's great, but can we get to the point of refining?

Thank you, Congressman. That's a great question. The answer is yes, we can get to refining, but there are certain things we're gonna need. Number one, ref processing and refining is incredibly energy intensive. It's a binding constraint here in the US. We see that one of the reasons we can't cost competitively do aluminum here, is because we can't compete with the hydroelectric power in in Canada.

Correct.

Now, when we go to Africa, obviously we have the most energy starved continent in the world. So, Making that cost competitive is gonna take exactly what China did, which is they put state state backed capital into building that energy ecosystem number one.

That's right.

Two, it's can we get capital? Again, building processing is a lot of upfront capital and not every country has that capital. So are we willing to lend to them on competitive terms? Um, combining it and blending it with private capital of course to manage the risk. And then the third thing is technical know-how. Zambia has more copper speltors than the United States does today. Right? So for those where we, they know how to do it, it is easy to do.

Yep.

But some of the more complicated ones, like rare earths where there are fifty stages of refining, maybe there is room to build five steps on the continent, but we need to help them with that technical know-how. So we can do it, we just need to take undertake certain steps.

Right, and with that, so, so my concern is, I, I see with this, with Taiwan, Taiwan's economy is growing at a amazing clip, it's like twelve percent right now, just crazy. They've sort of figured it out. Um, our issue is w- a- and everybody's issue around the world is what happens, what would China's, they're way ahead of us, will they start dumping their minerals, uh, you know, at a lower cost? And frankly, it's all, you know, cost when it comes down to a lot of these co- these countries saying, hey, if we can buy it a little cheaper, we're willing to go down that path. Now, I don't know who the US is, but it really hurts us w- in this global scheme of things. Uh, I'd like to your answer for that and then I'd also I'd like to ask uh mister doctor Brazilian the same question.

So the first thing is the dumping is our biggest challenge, not just in America but with our a our allies, right. We've closed nickel mines in Australia and New Caledonia owing to the dumping.

Yep.

I remember Ronald Reagan said something, he said if you want more of something, subsidize it, and if you want less of something, tax it.

Right.

We're probably gonna have to take the same approach here,

Exactly.

right. It is gonna be a combination of tariffs,

Yep.

but also providing support to our strategic project. to keep them open amidst the dumping.

Yep.

And so it's gonna be a kind of a whole of governmental together.

Yep.

Thank you, Doctor Brazillian, if you could add on that and then how do we, how do we create private capital? I mean, how do we invest? How do we create predictable tax loss here in the US that maybe we can compete in this area?

Having uh w- we need to make the markets work, it's something we're good at,

Yep.

and we know h- w- once those markets work they give decent signals to that unbelievably large pool of capital the the issue is that today those markets and most of those critical minerals are small um opaque they don't have liquidity they don't have good trading tools and they have terrible price discovery

yup

so we need to work on that in some cases congressman those markets are simply too small to have that kind of thing and

yeah that's concerning

it it and those need a lot more attention

yup yup yup so so

a- absolutely, but, you know, just to say that we're we're sitting in a a a a committee today that's taking this very seriously. If we can maintain the political prioritization, that will help everything else.

Sounds good. Thanks. Thank you everyone. Thanks for your uh all your testimonies and I yield back.

Gentleman from Iowa yields back. The gentleman from Ohio, Mister Kerry, is recognized for five minutes.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chairman, I also want to thank the Chairman and the ranking member for holding this committee hearing, and I appreciate all of you that are here today. Uh, first uh, Doctor Bhaskara, I'm I'm I'm gonna address some of my questions to you to be thinking about them. I'm gonna say a few things, but um mainly on the OGOA front, Uh, I'm one of the believers that I think two years is incredibly too well. I mean, I, I mean, how do you make an investment in, in two years' time period? So we, we can discuss that and also some of the labor standards. But I do recognize and, and, and I was, it was, I was delighted in many ways to hear many of my colleagues talking about the need, um, and talking about the mining techniques and the labor practices and the environmental standards of so many of these countries. And, and I think together in a bipartisan way because of those things, around the world, I think that you can see that mining practices, our environmental practices, our standards of excellence are here in the United States, and we need to do much, much more to explore those natural resources as was brought up prior. Um, the other thing I want to just be cognizant of is, is we were talking about Azerbaijan, and I appreciate uh the discussion, particularly as it relates to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Um, but - but I do think that w- when you look at Central Asia, and I do think that it would be nice when you - when you can see on videos, where kids don't even know what countries border the United States, I would like to show them a map of Central Asia and see if they can pick them out. But - but it - but having - but having said that, the Chinese influence in that region is overwhelming, and we do know that, and we must do our due diligence to ensure stability in that - in - in that area of the co- of the world. So, Speaking of that, in preventing further Russian influence in the region and the stability of the relations between Armenia, which is one of the first countries to adopt Christianity, the first country, and Azerbaijan, and I know the administration has been working diligently on that, there are several people that are still being held in Azerbaijan that are of Armenian descent. And I do think that that is something that we need to make sure that we hold into account. Also, as it relates to the Nepal flooding, we've seen and we look at the infrastructure within the country of a Nepal country that we have recognized their sovereignty since nineteen forty seven they have significant reserves and unfortunately their most mining that they do is actually in limestone. So there could be ways that we can work with that. They've had over twenty nine bridges destroyed, three of which um so I think it's a total of a number of thirty four bridges that have been destroyed since that tragedy. So I'm gonna go on to the line of questioning uh knowing already where I stand on a two year for Ogoa. But let's talk specifically as it relates um to that agreement, and I'm gonna obviously address you doctor. Do you have any concerns about the forced labor in Ogoa supply chain specifically and anybody can Google this it just takes thirty seconds, um about cobalt mining.

Thank you so much for your uh for your question and your support on the Ogoa reauthorization. Cobalt, the majority of human rights output sits in small artisanal and small scale mining in the DRC. which accounts for about ten percent of global output. The reality is is the United States is a better partner than China is, because we have the ability to use standards to apply international um standards to this relationship. Not engaging with the DRC's cobalt sector because there are challenges with this is a wrong answer, because China will continue forward with it. And we have the ability through things like AGOA, which obviously has a forced labor provision, but also through the DRC partnership agreement, which has a human rights provision, and improving the governance of the sector to help them do better. So it is a concern and we have an obligation to help them do better.

You know, one one thing I was just sitting here thinking as you were talking and a very great description of that, I I just wish that before you buy a cell phone you need to know where all the products come from, and be able to at least point it out on a map and understand the relationship that our country has with us. So, um, I do appreciate the opportunity to to address you guys on a lot of things, but I do wanna touch on the section forty-seven X tax credit. uh, while also expanding the list of those eligible critical materials as it relates to our domestic supply. And, and I think as we pointed out, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle understand there are challenges when you're dealing with with other countries and I think we set the standard for excellence in this country and I think these are uh many things and I don't give him credit nearly enough but my dear friend Blake Moore on his legislation the Critical Mineral Extraction Tax Parity Act I hope to see this bill move through our legislative process really soon. So, uh, with that, Mister Chairman, um, and members of committee, I yield. Thank you.

The gentleman from Ohio yields back. The gentleman from Nevada, Mister Horsford, is recognized for five minutes.

I thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member for holding this hearing. I do wanna remind my colleagues, uh, that this committee had a chance to address this issue last December. Uh, during this committee's mark-up of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which I supported, I offered an amendment to study US investment in trade with African mineral producers and to counter China's position in that sector. The reporting requirements I proposed would have provided the type of information that was necessary to make a hearing like this and any action we take more useful but instead of coming together to address China's influence, we were told now is not the time. and it was voted down. Well, China didn't wait for a better time. On May first of this year, China went to zero tariffs on one hundred percent of imports from all fifty-three African countries it has diplomatic ties with, minerals included. China-Africa trade hit a record three hundred and forty-eight billion dollars last year. So, Mister Chair, I request unanimous consent to enter two articles on China's growing influence throughout the past, year into the record. And additionally, I would like to submit to the record the vote tally for my amendment from the AGOA mark-up.

And without objection, so ordered.

Thank you. So while the majority at the time decided it wasn't the time, China opened its entire market to African minerals. Worse, AGOA is now extended to twenty twenty eight without touching the criminal critical minerals problem that this hearing is supposedly about. We lost a year already, and now we're awaiting two more, and the whole time China will amass more influence in Africa. Doctor Bhaskaran, Congress has identified a strategic vulnerability like our critical mineral supply chain, but continues to wait to act on the trade and investment relationships needed to compete. Can you share who is filling that space while the United States is not investing?

Congressman, thank you so much for your question. I think we all know the answer is that China is acquiring mines worldwide, including in China, at rapid speed. And it is difficult to compete because they are willing to pay more than any Western company with fiduciary responsibilities is willing to. You raised two points, there's tariffs and investment. Generally minerals attract quite a low tariff. They're usually zero to two percent coming from African countries. So it may not massively increase the economic viability of that project owing to that alone. However, in cr- creating an investment incentive will be really critical to create an incentive to source those minerals. That is what will create a value proposition for companies debating investment in the region and will be a crucial part, and I look forward to the work this committee can do on that.

Thank you. China, as you noted, will continue to dominate these supply chains while we vote down efforts to address these issues. Uh, Doctor Bhaskaran, how hard will it be to access African critical min minerals if we wait another two years before we open up programs like AGOA?

The answer is it will be very difficult because the decisions that are being made now on exploration acquiring mining rights are going to impact mine development for the next twenty to thirty years and off-take potentially even longer. We are at an incredibly consequential moment in history in the US-Africa relationship. And I have been pleased with the progress of the State Department in, um, focusing on commercial diplomacy between the two regions.

Thank you. Just to close, domestically Nevada is a leader in critical minerals. Uh, our state holds around eighty-five percent of the known lithium reserves here in the United States. In fact, Nevada contains known occurrences or deposits of thirty-three critical minerals. Just last month, a U S critical minerals company, imported the nation's largest known Tuckston resource in Nevada. The fact is that we have domestic resources right here that must be centered in these conversations. The safest and most secure supply chain is here on American soil. But we can't ask allies to partner with us abroad while we fail to build the mining, processing, and manufacturing capacity that we need here at home. That means permitting, it means financing. And on this committee, it means getting the tax code right. I plan to introduce legislation to ensure that we are using the tax code to spur these industries right here in America. But I am working beyond just the tax code. My bill will ensure that we have the workforce so that the United States is the leader in efficient and uh sustainable mining, something that my state knows a lot about. This should not be partisan, and on this committee it isn't. I know that Mister Blake Moore introduced his own forty-five X bill, and Mister Moore, I hope that we can work together to keep domestic mining center of our critical mineral supply chain. So Mister Chair, we do have members on both sides with solutions, but the issue is we need action. And I urge us to act at a critical time when critical minerals are so important to our nation's security and economic prosperity. I yield back.

The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Utah, Mister Moore, is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you to the gentleman from Nevada, and in response absolutely, and always happy to engage on any legislative matter. Um, and I do think it's important in in our the the the nature of our two states, working together on this makes absolute sense. So, I believe our teams will be working on it together too. So, thank you for that. Uh, and again, Mister Chairman, it's no secret that Utah is playing a key role in securing our critical mineral supply chains. I only have to point to the University of Utah's recent partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in May to launch a new minerals accelerator and research testbed which will develop cutting edge technologies for extracting and refining minerals on home soil, which is obviously something that's so critically important. I can also point to my visit recently to Utah County in July with US Trade Representative Jamison Greer to meet with ionic Mineral Technologies, which hosts a massive high-grade deposit of nineteen critical minerals, and and and significant profit capability and an ability to be able to provide all the industries, particularly those who are national security, of of a unique reser- or or a unique potential with these deposits. And it's a, it is very significant and um I appreciate the the ambassador's attention to that and putting a focus on that as well. On the legislative sli- slide, I'm pleased that a domestic mining bill of mine will be considered on the floor today. The PR protect domestic mining act, which I sponsored with Representative Jefferson Shree from Indiana, which amends the FAST Act to ensuring mining and refining projects benefit from a more efficient federal permitting process. It also stops the proposed Biden-era rule that would narrow the types of mining projects that qualify for that process. Mr. Chairman, I ask you now, on this consent, also furthermore to to to submit this letter from the National Mining Association into the

With that objection, so ordered.

Thank you. This bill will align um the section forty-five X has been has been mentioned today, the forty-five X tax credit with the US Geological Survey's critical mineral list. It also recognizes extraction as a qualifying activity to ensure that we can competitively source the minerals necessary for next generation defense, space, and aviation technologies. Hope to see more and to encourage those and and others too. to to cosponsor this bill. Doctor Bazilian, um, my question pertains to to the bill that I was just mentioned here. A tax bill is designed to unlock investment and accelerate project development in the mining industry. That would look, you know, what would it look like if this legislation took hold, both in areas that have a thriving mining sector like Utah, and other areas that are lagging behind but could potentially develop?

Thanks Congressman. Um, We of course sit next door to Utah and have um watched closely on the great work that uh your state is doing in in mining and and uh the wider supply chain. I think that all the work of this committee um is founded on the the basis of what we do domestically and so the the expanding the forty-five x as well as uh the focus on permitting is most welcome. Um, as you note and as your state has announced, there are lots and lots of these different critical minerals in the ground, in Utah and in the greater, and Nevada of course and in the west. And so I applaud your efforts and um hopefully we can uh keep moving at the pace and scale we need.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Um, Ambassador Herbst, uh, much as we've talked about Jackson Vanek a lot today, um, so I won't you know rehash all the nuance and context with with respect to that but um we know that to some extent preventing countries in Central Asia from partnering with Russia and China is impossible. These guys live in a tough neighborhood, but my focus is around what we can do to give them enough alternatives so that they never have to choose Russia and China exclusively. I have the best case that that that we can um do that. Phil's like permanently removing Jackson Banach and establishing a PNTR could be part of this strategy. And we should want Central Asia to have as many doors open as possible. How long do you think it would take for us to see real results? Um, if we were to end the Jackson Vanek amendment, and do you believe it provides these countries more opportunities to say no to China and Russia down the road?

Well, I think we'd see changes right away. Not large, but real. And i- not just such a question of repealing Jackson Vanek, it's a question of encouraging American investment into the region, It's a matter of enhancing um trade quarters, so landlocked Central Asia has direct access to global markets, not dependent on Russia and China. It's a question of us helping them on the small issues relating to security, where they're happy to cooperate with us. We do all these things. If it becomes normal for an American Secretary of State, or an American Secretary of War, or American Treasury Secretary, to visit Central Asia, that encourages it, and an occasional presidential visit. All these things would be enthusiastically greeted and would lead to constant changes. So that, you know, ten years down the road, instead of us instead of us taking only two percent of their trade in rare and critical minerals, we are getting ten or fifteen or twenty percent. So there are many things we can do. The cost for us to do it is low. the impact over time substantial.

Thank you very much, I'll back it up.

The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Florida, Mister Bean, is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman, good afternoon to you and good afternoon ways and means committee and to our all-star panel. Welcome to Capitol Hill, we're glad to have you here. As a kid who grew up in the eighties and anybody that grew up in the eighties will probably agree with me that uh going to the arcade was always a treat. Uh I think uh I see some a fellow Gen Xer right here. uh to play games like Donkey Kong or Space Invaders. Uh that was always uh the go-to thing to talk about. But there was one game, there was one game that dominated them all. It was the game that had the big yellow ball that went around and ate everything else. Of course, I'm talking about Pac-Man. That was the uh the Mac Daddy uh game of them all. And you may be wondering why am I talking about Pac-Man in this hearing now? It's because when you look at a pie chart of criti- critical minerals and rare earth elements, you see the red Pac-Man emerging. China is eating up, just like the yellow ball in the game is going around, eating up all of the dots, the fruit and uh rare earth elements uh across the globe. And unlike the arcade of uh past where you could hear You knew Pac-Man was going down, cuz you could hear the distinct sound and you would recognize it today. China, unlike the uh the the noise at the arcade, China's been doing it silently for for for decades. So why did this hearing is so important? Because it's raising the alarm and we're finally realizing that critical minerals and rare earth elements are essential to modern life, our national defense. They're using everything from smartphones and batteries to fighter aircraft, precision guided weapons, and so much more. And so to have this discussion i- is a uh is truly a big deal. And to the all-star panelists that are here, you've given us tremendous amounts of testimony. Where do we start? If you were gonna say one thing that we need to work on, uh where would it go to? Mister Rundey, what say you? Where do we start?

Please, please remove Jackson Vanek for central Asian countries. That's in your power, Congressman. You could do that right now, and we could start pushing back against that Pac-Man. Absolutely. So I think we have to start with that. There are other steps we've talked about here. I do think it's some of the steps that the congressman from Nevada talked about, about strengthening domestic mineral production. I think that's very encouraging. That's very encouraging. So I think we have to strengthen uh our abilities here at home, but we have partners. We cannot do this alone, Congressman.

Ten four. No, and I think there's great bipartisan, I see Swasey and Panetta and uh Horsford and others on the other side of the aisle that recognize we have to work together on this. Uh, Doctor Bhaskaran, what say you, where do we need to start, where do we go?

Thank you so much. I think we need to extend the forty five X processing tax credit. I mean, the reality of the forty five X is it's incredibly important to making these projects more economic, but twenty thirty one, twenty thirty two, twenty th- thirty three for the phase out is actually very soon, and it don't doesn't give investors a long-term um, signal that they need. So I think taking what we have and just extending the longevity of it will be really critical.

Very good. Ambassador Herbst. Ambassador, your microphone.

I have already spoken about the Central Asian dimension. Look, I am great encouraged by this hearing. Um, and what would be nice to see is if representatives from both parties recognize the need not just to reach out to potential partners in Central Asia, but to restore relations with allies like Canada. All these things need to happen. And also I agree with Dan and of course the Sen- the Congressman from from Nevada, we've gotta do the work at home.

Definitely.

We have great resources. Let's open up them.

Thank you, Ba- Ambassador, I too am encouraged by this uh by this hearing. Uh, Doctor Brazil, you know, what say you?

Um, uh, I'll say I usually don't like pie charts, but I really like the one you have there. Um, I think, politically we need to keep this area prioritized, that's one of the most important things you can do. Um, I agree on building a small, strong domestic base and extending forty five X. And one thing we haven't touched on here is the partnerships with Latin American countries which are uh uh absolutely fundamental to this.

Thank you. Th- uh, thank you. Uh, the only thing in a real Pac-Man game is gonna, that would stop Pac-Man are are these little ghosts that comes back. And I believe the only thing that's gonna stop this red Pac-Man is for us to all work together and uh and push back and identify this is true national security for us not to be dependent on China. So thank you, panelists. Uh, Ambassador?

And economic security.

Amen, brother. Amen. Mister Chairman, I yield back.

Gentleman from Florida yields back. The gentleman from New York, Mister Swazi, is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses. We really appreciate the time you've taken today and for your service to our country. All of you have uh put so much time and effort into learning about these topics and helping to be experts to each of us. I want to make it clear from the beginning that I support the long-term extension of AGOA, that uh I'm a co-leader of Mister Panetta's US-Kazakhstan Trade Modernization Act, which would repeal the Jackson-Vanik and extend permanent normal trade relations status for Kazakhstan. And third, I think that the United States of America should have a uh uh critical minerals and mining czar one person responsible in the administration whose job it is to look across all the many agencies we have in our country both domestically and internationally, whose job it is to secure critical mental minerals for the United States of America. Right now it's uh located in so many different departments and very fractured. I wanna just make it clear that I disagree with this administration's handling of our international trade relations uh and a lot of our uh international relations. And there's a battle going on in our world right now. And it's between people with certain values that they share with us and people that share values with our strategic adversaries. So it's the United States of America and it's Canada, and it's Europe and NATO, and it's Israel, and it's uh uh South Korea and Japan and Australia on one side, and on the other side you have China and Russia and North Korea and Iran, and then there's people along a continuum in between the two that we wanna try and get more people on our side and less people on their side. And right now Kazakhstan is a great example of a country that much like uh, Japan and South Korea and Australia, who are physically proximate to China and rely incredibly for their economies on China, lean towards us despite the fact that they're so physically proximate to China and despite the fact that their economy is so affected by them, they all wanna help us. We should be treating them so well to get them closer to us. And Kazakhstan is one of the best examples in the world of someone that shares I think it's a five thousand mile border with uh with uh Russia and a huge uh border with China as well, the Xinjiang region actually, there's a lot of a lot of uh uh Uighurs who actually have emigrated from China into Kazakhstan. And these are great potential friends of ours because they lean towards us. They want to be closer to us even though they are geographically right next to China and Russia, and their economies are very dependent on them, they want to lean towards us as much as possible. Mister Panetta gave some great examples of the uh President uh Tokayev of Kazakhstan extending uh, I'm sorry, limiting his term to seven years, uh, uh, promoting other democratic principles. While I was there in Kazakhstan, uh, we visited uh Rabbi Schneerson's father's site, you know, the idea of Jackson Vaneck protects Soviet Jews a long time ago doesn't make any sense in the say say in in in terms of Kazakhstan, who actually has a religious liberty conference every year and discusses many of these different religious liberty issues. So, uh, I want to ask the witnesses, and I want to start with the democratic witness, you know, what about this basic idea that I'm saying about the idea of sharing values with us and certain countries that share values with us, and other strategic adversaries and others in between, and we should be trying to bring more people on our side instead of pushing people to the other side. You agree with that basic concept?

I think that we should be making sure that when we do trade policy with wi- with Canada and with - with those uh allies that we are pushing our b- I'm sorry. um, that that we should not be undermining, um, our our relationships with with some of those countries.

Okay. Any of the other witnesses who would like to comment? Yes, doctor.

I think these are like swing states, you know, there's a lot of purple countries in the world, and you don't win or lose cuz you need all the purples, but you need to get enough purples to win, right? And I think the reality is on the spectrum a lot of our allies are in the Agoa countries and in the Central Asia, And our success twenty years from now to insure that we are not the same crisis point we are now, is by deploying our tools in a coordinated manner with our purple friends.

Ambassador?

Uh, I think you expressed the same views I did in my last answer. We wanna work with all partners who can be useful to us, and we need to remember our allies as we do that.

Mister Rundy.

Nice to see you, Congressman. The Education Minister of Kazakhstan went to the University of Iowa. He was adopted. by two Iowa parents, labor activists actually in the Democratic Party. He loves America. He's making it his business to try and build education partnerships across the United States. He he gets up every morning to do that. And uh, you know, he's he sees education as part of the changing the economy and the and the development of Kazakhstan. So they want more of us, more commerce, more minerals, more tech, more security, and more education.

Thank you, Mr. Redding. Doctor, I'm sorry that the chairman's cutting you off.

The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from N- New York yields back. The gentleman from Ohio, Mister Miller, is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate you calling this hearing and thank you to the witnesses for your testimony. It's hard to imagine a much more important topic for us to address than the security of the critical supply chains that feed our defense industrial base. Supply chain security is one of the most frequently discussed topics in Washington these days. Unfortunately, that's because it has been naively neglected for decades, and now we're at the point of crisis. Critical supply chains that our nation's defense contractors depend off and run through the People's Republic of China. In twenty twenty four, China imposed some of the toughest critical mineral export controls on the United States. These included a full ban on the export of anemone, gallium, and germanium, all three of which are essential for our arms industry. They have since lifted pending ongoing trade negotiations, PRC threatens to levy these restrictions frequently. This must be a wake-up call for all of us here who are listening. Only recently has the United States government began to take this problem seriously, as I had noted before. President Trump has been very clear and consistent. American supply chains cannot run through China or any other adversary. But we have some serious work to do, which we know. The United States still imports seventy percent of our rare earths from China. and we are playing catch up on scaling our refining capacity and diversifying our feedstocks. Many people mistakenly believe that China is the only game in town when it comes to critical minerals, but I believe that we all know that that's not true whatsoever. Luckily, this committee has the ability to address these vulnerabilities directly, as many of you noted within your testimony. The extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act and the repeal of the Cold War era trade barriers like Jackson, Vanek are prime opportunities for us to move the needle on critical mineral supply chain dependencies. Uh, Doctor Brazilian, you can see uh, as you noted in the Africa section of your testimony, while Africa possesses immense resource wealth, it also comes with a substantial amount of risk to U. S. investors due to the nationalization of foreign-owned assets and illicit mineral trade likes that we see in M-twenty-three in Rwanda and the DRC. How can this committee work to reduce risk for U. S. investors in the Africa critical mineral

Thank you, Congressman. Um. I think we need to keep engaging. And one of the reasons that China has beat us on the diplomatic front is that we, uh, have a, uh, rather, uh, peripatetic approach to this. And we it's volatile and it has these four year time frames. So engaging in real diplomacy with these countries, acknowledging that there are, that there is room to grow governance functions and rule of law, and the the other aspects that make up uh overall good partners. Um, yes, there is a illicit trade in some of these goods from gold to uh a lot of other minerals, metals, chemicals, et cetera. um we also saw that we have to take risks. So the some of the disruptions in Mozambique had a direct uh outcome on some of uh the partnerships on uh graphite um so but I think continued engagement working with these people and you know it's often brought up and we heard it today uh uh about the child labor i in the DRC for cobalt uh one has to keep in mind that the people the the parents of those children do not want them working in the mines, it's a necessity to eat. And so if we can change the um dynamic there, then we can grow better partners.

Yeah. I appreciate what you're saying and um, I'm a big believer in history and you know, keeping these relationships strong will only be helpful and stability is a a key factor in that. Uh, things happen one way or the other, but everywhere that I see that the United States receipts from an area, the PRC comes right in and they take over. Uh, whether it's uh, yeah, for a different time. How about that? Uh, Ambassador, good to see you. Uh, what is the practical impact of Jackson Vanek today on United States businesses, attempting to invest in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and other affected countries? Uh, additionally, what opportunities are beyond this hurdle, and how will they impact our dependence on the PRC for critical minerals and permanent magnets?

Oh, d- the current imposition of Jackson Vanek is an impediment to trade and investment. It's not gonna stop all trade investment, but it'll stop some deals. It's also seen, the the current application of this, it's seen as a lack of American seriousness in addressing the policy requirements of the Central Asians, and an irrational impediment. So it's it's a clear gain for us. We'll we see it from the very beginning if we move on this, and it opens the doors to more intense cooperation in the future, as long as we pursue this.

Thank you. I apologize, Ambassador, I'll make sure to be sure.

The gentleman's time has expired.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Uh, the chair would like to remind both members and our witnesses to please limit the remarks to five minutes allotted. Uh, at this time, Mister Beier, the gentleman from Virginia, is recognized for five minutes.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and thank all of you for hanging in with us now for for many hours, and certainly for your expertise. Uh, you know, building a durable and resilient critical mineral supply chain is essential for our national security. and I appreciate this committee's focus on the topic. Some of the witnesses before us recommended that we expand trade preference programs, like AGOA. I confess we were disappointed it was only one year. We should have thought it should have been three years or permanent. And strengthening our ties with Central America by repealing Jackson Vanek to improve our critical mineral security, a strong idea. I strongly support this. However, the benefits to these proposals and others pale in comparison to the damage our president has done every single day to our most important supply chains, the broader economy, our alliances, and our standing in the world with these senseless tariffs. Since stepping into office last January, Trump's trade policy has been characterized by nonstop chaos, by illegality, corruptions, and Americans are paying the price. Over the last eighteen months he's antagonized our closest friends, including Canada, allies, trading partners countless times, and posed a Byzantine patchwork of tariffs the fluctuates on its ever-changing whims. Despite promising to lower prices on day one, instead began his administration by imposing new tariffs on our largest trading partners increasing our effective tariff rate to the highest level seen since World War Two at times it's been the highest since Smoot-Hawley in nineteen thirty one. He followed this up with his infamous and blatantly unconstitutional liberation day tariffs on most of the globe which led to the illegal collection of hundreds of billions of dollars by the government paid for ninety-six percent by American consumers. And those tariffs were thrown out by the Supreme Court. He replaced them with misusing other trade authorities, like sections two thirty-two and three O one. And most recently he resurrected a great depression era law to reignite a trade war with Canada. And he seems to be doing everything he can to drive a permanent wedge between our two nations based on his childless and pointless insults. Collectively, the president's policies have undermined our national security and economic goals, including critical minerals, and have strengthened our critical mineral supply chains, such as strengthening or revitalizing domestic manufacturing. Our reputation as a reliable trading partner has been broken, perhaps beyond repair, as the President regularly goes back on his word to break agreements that he himself signed. Let's think about USMCA, which he once called the best trade agreement in world history. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving on. with other nations understanding that we now operate in bad faith and that under this president, agreements are essentially worthless. Before long, this America First approach will mean America alone, and we will be the weakest force. I would note too, sadly, that all this is happening with the acquiescence of my Republican friends in Congress, who could end this chaos by working with us to rein in this lawless administration. Mr. St. Louis, the administration touts the many agreements on reciprocal trade, frameworks, action plans, MOUs, is negotiated as evidence that the President's trade strategy is working, particularly as for sp- relates to critical minerals. But you note in your t- in your testimony to the extent that any information about them has been disclosed publicly, they seem to be largely characterized by coercion, conflicts of interest, and self-dealing. And this doesn't seem to be like a great foundation for secure critical mineral supply chain. Other than providing members opportunities for members of the president's family or his allies like the to enrich themselves, do these agreements achieve any meaningful policy goals?

Well, I think that there there's a lot that we still don't know, and what we first need to see is what is actually being negotiated in all of the MOUs that are that are not public yet. Um, that's why my organization has um has liti- has begun litigation uh to demand our four year requests get responses. Um, but in addition, you know, I think I agree with what you said, that that having these deals negotiated in secret without civil society or affected communities' voices without parliamentarians from the various countries, included in the in those negotiations,

W- without without Congress, too.

we need to know what Without Congress as well, yeah. And um and and that by flouting congressional authority, we need to actually see what is in those deals in order to be able to uh ensure that we are pushing for a a a comprehensive policy and I think it needs to start with a coherent plan of what are the minerals projections and forecasts that we need are we investing in circularity first to reduce the amount of extraction needed and then having a strategic plan for what partnerships we need and to ensure that there are high standards on environment et cetera.

Gentleman's time has expired. Uh, I now recognize myself for five minutes. Thanks to the witnesses, there is no question that the United States faces a clear challenge when it comes to critical minerals. Our economic and national security depends on supply chains that are too heavily concentrated in the hands of our competitors. We've heard it many times from all of you and we've seen it in our prep material that China currently produces thirty of the fifty critical minerals designated by the United States and accounts for more than ninety percent of global processing for several critical minerals. When China restricts access to critical minerals and rare earth elements, it can put American manufacturers, advanced technologies, and our defense industrial base at risk. You have said it today multiple times and we are grateful for that. That's why diversifying our supply chains is not simply an economic priority, it is a national security imperative. In East Texas, where I represent, companies are taking this priority seriously. We're beginning to mine lithium from the Smackover formation that runs through my district. But we know that supply chain diversification requires more than just domestic mining. It requires building relationships with countries that possess the resources we need. It also means American control of logistics. operations in key points of the supply chain around the world. And also diplomacy must be a critical tool for building these trade relationships that deliver tangible benefits for the American people and for our partners. It's clear to me that we cannot simply expect these countries to choose the United States over China. We must give them a reason to choose us. Our advantage is that we can offer something fundamentally different than China, a stable economy, transparent rules, Partnerships designed to help our partners develop their economies, create jobs, and properly utilize natural resources while also benefiting American companies and taxpayers. We've already seen progress in this effort. On February fourth, the US hosted a critical minerals ministerial with fifty-four countries and the European Commission. At that ministerial, the United States signed eleven new bilateral critical minerals frameworks, and MOUs announced ten additional agreements reached over the previous five months. and completed negotiations on agreements with seventeen other countries. That's the kind of diplomacy we need, diplomacy that produces concrete economic partnerships and kudos to the administration for leading in this effort. Congress also has an important role to play though, no question. We should encourage tools such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act, also known as the GOA, which has been mentioned today, and consider establishing permanent tra- normal trade relations with key countries in the cri- critical mineral supply chains. Ultimately, if we want to reduce our d- dependence on China, we need to do more than tell countries that they should work with us. We should be great partners. We need to demonstrate that partnering with the U. S. is in their economic interest and strategic interest as well as our own. Mister Rund- Runday, I want to come to you first for a question. You note in your testimony that Central Asia will play a crucial role in the critical minerals trade in part because of the strategic cr- trading routes that run through the region. You advocate for the US to support development of the Trans-Caspian or Middle Corridor, which would connect Central A- Asia to Europe and in effect create stronger economic linkages among the US, Europe and Central Asia. The strategic important of importance of this region is clear. We've already talked about Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan also has lots of uh uh key minerals, a major producer of uranium and gold, and has significant c- copper resources. and natural gas as well. Surely China and Russia recognize this same strategic opportunity in the Central Asia region. So here's my question to you, Mister Runde, how are China and Russia seeking to expand their influence over the Middle Corridor and Central Asian economies? And how successful is US currently in building economic and strategic partnerships in that region?

Thank you, Congressman. Uh, they're next door, so they have a lot of proximity. Uh, it's really far away. uh from us and sometimes out of sight is out of mind uh i i give credit to several administrations and in addition i give credit to the trump administration for adding additional attention to central asia they have a special envoy for central asia i think this is very important but this has been building on several administrations including democratic and republican administrations look we're we're making progress i think this hearing is a good step in the right direction let's remove jackson vanik from these four countries that would go a long way Congressman, there's lots of other steps we, DFC, the Exim bank, uh, we have a bunch of other tools, diplomacy matters, showing up matters, um, and, uh, I think there've been, there've been several steps, but they're next door, so if we ain't showing up, they're gonna fill the void.

Thank you, and again, thank you to all the witnesses today. It's too critical for us to overlook the imperative of building these relationships and sustaining them long term. Uh with that I'm gonna live by my own five minute rule and uh yield back. At this time I will uh recognize Mister Schneider from Illinois for five minutes.

Thank you Mister Chairman, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today, for your patience and for sharing your perspectives on this important issue. Uh before I turn to my questions I want to touch on something that uh Doctor Brazilian, you mentioned in your uh opening statement, uh and that's the idea of mind emission. as a you use it as a test but i want to think it more of a as a perspective and um rather than think of it as a straight line my intermission think of it as a circle i think it's important that as we talk about this uh we need stay stable supply uh secure supply chains for our national security and our national prosperity uh but uh mister i think you said it very well as as also securing america's critical resources supply chains require not only resources but relationships. And our relationships are stronger and more durable when we're dealing with stable and prosperous partners and allies. So I like the mind to mission view, knowing that our mission is a stable, secure United States, protecting our interests around the world, but it's also investing in these relationships uh over time. Uh because as we've talked about throughout this whole hearing, critical minerals are building blocks for the most innovative technologies in the world. My district is home to some of the largest medical device manufacturers in our country, and they depend on secure critical mineral supply chains to continue manufacturing new technologies that address the next generation of medical challenges, addressing both opportunities to heal people but also prevent uh diseases uh as well. Critical mi- minerals are the foundation for critical medical technologies like MRI and CT machines, mammography machines, and radiation equipment. These technologies are helping doctors and hospitals diagnose and treat patients every single day. Whether for our nation's health care or defense and security, it's imperative that we secure reliable sources for critical minerals, including strengthening domestic capabilities where possible, as was discussed today. I understand the importance of this topic. However, I also feel that this hearing was a missed opportunity to discuss the ongoing trade war President Trump has gotten us into with Canada, our neighbor and second largest trading partner. I know some of my colleagues have mentioned this. Last year, the Wall Street Journal called President Trump's tariff on Canada Canada and Mexico and I'm gonna quote, "the dumbest trade war in history." And they doubled down last month when the President announced new tariffs on Canada. The President's decision to impose tariffs without consulting Congress is without a doubt raising prices of American families, across the nation. According to the Yale Budget Lab, and again I'm quoting, quote, " estimated household costs due to tariffs total about one thousand one hundred dollars annually under current law," end quote. I ask unanimous consent to introduce the Yale report into the record.

Fat objection, so ordered.

Thank you. In my state, Illinois, exports to Canada total seventeen and a half billion dollars annually. That includes fuel, medical supplies, plastics, and agricultural products. All of these products will be more expensive as a result of President Trump's trade policy. What I'm asking this committee for, and I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join me, is to schedule a hearing on our trade relationship with Canada and how we can work as a committee to repair the relationships with our neighbor and second largest trading partner because it's not just on critical min minerals, that circular relationship of stable, secure supply chains and trusted allies applies to all of our relationships. Returning to critical mineral minerals and I'll start, Doctor Bhaskara. Uh, critical minerals are essential inputs for a wide range of medical technologies, yet medical device manufacturers often have limited ability to quickly redesign products or find alternative sources when supplies are constrained. What policies would help ensure that critical sectors such as health care and medical technology receive the priority con- consideration they need and maintain reliable access to mineral minerals and these materials during supply disruptions or constraints.

Thank you, Congressman. E- earlier this year, XM announced a very important tool called Project Vault, and Project Vault's goal is that when there is a disruption to a supply chain, American manufacturers can quickly access that material. This would require device manufacturers to join Project Vault and to communicate what their needs are in terms of the minerals that they need. it is designed to be an insurance for American industry so I think this administration um has taken concrete steps to support that industry but it is going to require a more proactive approach to knowing your inventory knowing how much of you you need and knowing where your vulnerabilities are by knowing where they come from.

Mr. Chair, I only have twelve seconds left, I need more than twelve minutes so I will wrap up. I want to thank the witnesses uh I forget who said it but this committee sits in

The gentleman from Illinois yields back. There'll be no further members to speak. I would like to thank all our witnesses for appearing before us today. Please be advised that members have two weeks to submit written questions to be answered later in writing. Those questions and your answers will be made part of the With that, the committee stands adjourned.