General discussion, page-32

n a bid to reduce its reliance on China for critical metals, the US Department of Defense is seeking Congressional approval to finance mining and processing of strategic metals, particularly, lithium and rare earths, in Australia.
The US department also wants the United Kingdom to be similarly classified, as it now refines the key battery metal nickel along with plans to process lithium and rare earths.
This comes at a time when the Australian Government in Canberra has put money into supporting downstream processing of key minerals rather than having them shipped to China.