Toward Decline
US critical minerals proposals to Brazil go unanswered as China looms
South China Morning Post Major outlet·2026-08-26TradeP1: Resource SovereigntyP5: Strategic Decoupling
Why it matters
Brazil's non-response to US critical-minerals proposals signals Western difficulty in building alternative rare-earth and mineral supply chains outside China's control. For Australia, this undermines the decoupling strategy (Pillar 5) and resource sovereignty (Pillar 1) by leaving China's processing stranglehold uncontested in a key non-Chinese source region, limiting Australia's own leverage in mineral exports.
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