The US has launched an effort to form a trade zone for critical minerals that are key to making everything from smartphones to weapons as it tries to break China's dominance of the industry.
On Wednesday, the State Department hosted an event attended by representatives from at least 50 countries, including officials from the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The purpose of the gathering was to discuss the availability of and access to minerals crucial to the manufacture of things like computer chips and electric vehicle batteries.
The mining and processing of such critical minerals, which includes rare earths, is dominated by China.
In remarks released by the US government, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not mention China by name.
