Trump administration working on critical minerals trade pact with ‘select group,’ Greer says

The Trump administration is working on language for a deal with a “select group” of trading partners to form a market for trading in critical minerals that would include a price floor to prevent dumping by China, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Thursday.

“We are right now preparing text … for a pluri-lateral agreement on trade in critical minerals,” Greer said at a congressional budget hearing. “We want to create an agreement where among the parties to the agreement we have a market in critical minerals among us, and we would trade at market-based prices.

“But if you’re not in the agreement and you want to trade with one of these parties, you have to do it at a certain level. You have to have a price floor because in the past the Chinese have just dumped into our market.”

(By Dan Burns; Editing by Paul Simao)