Ottawa: The Canadian and U.S. governments announced January 9 that they have finalized the Canada–U.S. Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals Collaboration, designed to secure supply chains for critical minerals needed for important manufacturing sectors, including communication technology, aerospace and defence, and clean technology. The announcement follows the June 2019 commitment by the Prime Minister Trudeau and President Trump.
The Action Plan will guide cooperation in areas such as industry engagement; efforts to secure critical minerals supply chains for strategic industries and defence; improving information sharing on mineral resources and potential; and cooperation in multilateral fora and with other countries. The action plan will promote joint initiatives, including research and development cooperation, supply chain modelling and increased support for industry.
Experts from both countries will convene in the coming weeks to advance joint initiatives to address shared mineral security concerns.
On December 18, 2019, Canada announced that it had joined the U.S.-led, multi-country Energy Resource Governance Initiative, which aims to promote secure and resilient supply chains for critical energy minerals. The Initiative complements the Government of Canada’s longstanding efforts to increase transparency in the extractive sector and ensure developing countries have the capacity to manage natural resources in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Canada’s partnership in the initiative is an early demonstration of its commitment to cooperate with the U.S. under the broader Action Plan.
Canada is an important supplier of 13 of the 35 minerals that the U.S. has identified as critical to economic and national security. Canada has the potential to become a reliable source of other critical minerals, including rare earth elements, key components in several power generation technologies like wind power generators, solar cells and batteries. Canada is currently the largest supplier of potash, indium, aluminum and tellurium to the U.S. and the second-largest supplier of niobium, tungsten and magnesium. Canada also supplies roughly one quarter of the uranium needs of the U.S. and has been a reliable partner to the U.S. in this commodity for over 75 years.