G7 leaders tackle reliance on China for critical minerals

– US President Donald Trump on June 17 told a roomful of global leaders “I’m the boss”, as he and other Group of Seven (G-7) leaders acknowledged Ukraine’s improved battlefield fortunes with a unified pledge of support and fresh sanctions against Russia.

Trump’s comment – a tongue-in-cheek admission of an unspoken truth hanging over the June 15 to 17 summit of the G-7 powers in the French resort of Evian-les-Bains – followed a joint leaders’ statement that could bolster Kyiv’s growing leverage in potential peace talks with Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his allies came to the G-7 hoping to impress upon Trump that Ukraine’s fightback is delivering results, and that Russia is in no position to be dictating terms for any peace deal.

The joint statement and comments from leaders suggest Trump has warmed to Zelensky’s argument after years of scepticism.

A G-7 summit in Canada in 2025 ended without any joint stance on Ukraine.

However, any hopes of strong-arming Moscow into peace talks still rely on commitments from Trump, which can be elusive.

It was unclear if bilateral Trump-Zelensky talks would take place, and it also remains to be seen if Trump will allow waivers to lapse on sanctions restricting Russian oil exports, now that he has secured a preliminary Iran deal.

“I’m the boss,” Trump told G-7 chiefs and reporters as he arrived to take his seat at a session on global economic security, where leaders were due to discuss supply chains for critical minerals and macroeconomic imbalances.

Trump on June 16 heralded a “very good” meeting with Zelensky and other G-7 leaders.

“There has been a change in position on the part of the United States and President Trump,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters. “There is a position that is harder towards Russia and more realistic, in our view, of the situation on the ground of the war.”

G-7 chiefs also welcomed a preliminary peace deal between the US and Iran – which Trump signed on the eve of the summit – and said they were ready to contribute to its implementation.

They said they would make efforts to diversify energy supply routes to reduce dependence on the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blocked for most of the duration of its war with the US, and increase stocks.

Trump did, however, stress on June 17 that the memorandum of understanding with Iran was not final, and that he could resume a bombing campaign if it was not honoured.

“If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?” he said.

Although European allies appeared supportive of the preliminary memorandum in public, diplomats cautioned that getting a lasting deal on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme, as well as its support for proxy forces in the Middle East, is no small challenge.

Meanwhile, France was pushing partners to sign a joint statement on critical minerals that could include measures to help the West reduce its reliance on China and shield investors from countermeasures and dumping, diplomats said. Some industries around the world nearly ground to a halt after Beijing imposed export curbs on permanent magnets made of rare earths.

“We are negotiating texts that are significant on critical minerals and, as a consequence, on economic sovereignty,” a French Presidency official said ahead of the summit.

Measures under discussion in recent months have included price supports, market standards, subsidies and guaranteed purchases, as well as ways to scale up private investment in critical mineral supply chains outside China. Any measures announced at the G-7 are likely to be only first steps.

The US in early 2026 proposed a trading bloc for critical minerals. But countries are at odds over how this bloc could operate, especially in the context of the White House’s “America First” agenda.

G-7 leaders were also due to discuss how to rebalance global trade and address “predatory competition”, mainly from China. France summarises the imbalances as: “China produces too much, the US consumes too much and the Europeans invest too little.”

Alarm is growing in Europe at China’s trade surplus and its move up the value chain, in what analysts describe as a “second China shock” following its dominance of low-value industries in the 2000s. The surplus stands at €360 billion (S$535.8 billion).

Beijing rejects EU claims of unfair subsidies and has repeatedly vowed “strong” countermeasures to the EU’s proposed “Buy European” and revised tech sovereignty rules.

EU leaders separately plan to debate tougher trade defence measures, and a more systematic use of them, against surging imports from China at a summit in Brussels on June 18.

G-7 leaders were also due to discuss artificial intelligence over lunch on June 17, including the liability of bots and agents, and how AI presents truth and falsehood, with tech bosses including OpenAI founder Sam Altman and Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei expected to attend. REUTERS