Mexico, US advance critical minerals pact ahead of their inclusion in the USMCA review

Two months after a plan for preferential trade in critical minerals with the U.S. was outlined, Mexico’s Finance Minister Édgar Amador visited U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to discuss a broader binational strategy regarding these strategic resources.

The two nations have been working for months to cobble together a joint strategy for arranging a stable supply of minerals deemed critical for the electronics and sustainable energy industries.

With the critical minerals such as lithium taking on such vital importance, Mexico and the U.S. are discussing developing regulatory standards for their mining, processing and trading. (Unsplash)

President Claudia Sheinbaum has emphasized the importance of lithium and copper for electric vehicle production and is working to position Mexico as a key supplier of critical minerals.

Lithium — which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador nationalized in 2022 — is used in battery manufacturing, while other strategic minerals found in Mexico include silver, aluminum, barite, antimony, cobalt and fluorite.

In a Wednesday social media post, Bessent said he and Amador “exchanged views on shared priorities under the U.S.-Mexico Action Plan on Critical Minerals and discussed broader regional and financial issues of mutual interest.”

An action plan released in February identified geological projects of specific interest to Mexico and proposed establishing minimum prices between the two nations. 

In a statement regarding another action plan issued last month, Mexico explained that “distortions stemming from widespread non-market-oriented policies and practices have left the supply chains of critical minerals … vulnerable to a wide range of disruptions.”

The March action plan, it said, is designed to “ensure the mutual resilience of critical mineral supply chains” with an eye on promoting technical and regulatory cooperation, as well as developing new technologies to extract these resources. 

The discussion surrounding the mineral wealth of both countries is taking place against the backdrop of the ongoing review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which will continue in Mexico City next week with bilateral talks involving U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

The trilateral review with Canada — set to take place in July — is expected to include a discussion of the management of critical minerals among the North American partners.

In a report released last year, the Brookings Institution pointed out that the U.S., Canada, and Mexico “have increasingly prioritized critical minerals as essential components of economic security, clean energy transitions, and advanced manufacturing,” especially as a way to achieve mutual supply chain diversification goals.

With reports from El País and Brookings

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