US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, preparing for her second trip to China for economic talks, indicated on Wednesday that the Biden administration is considering additional measures to safeguard American clean energy industries from China’s excessive investment and production capacity. While Yellen…

Europe’s push to secure critical minerals is moving beyond the familiar debate over mines, refineries and stockpiles. A more basic problem is now coming into focus: the continent does not control the pricing architecture for many of the materials it needs to build batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines, semiconductors, defence systems and advanced industrial equipment.

Europe will struggle to attract capital into mining and processing unless it creates its own transparent pricing system for specialty metals and rare earths. Without credible benchmarks outside China, investors cannot properly assess project economics, lenders cannot price risk with confidence, and developers face greater difficulty turning politically important projects into commercially bankable ones.

The Milwaukee Framework marks a move toward coordinated restrictions on steel trade, as governments seek to prevent excess production capacity from undermining their domestic industries. The Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity’s 28 member economies have agreed to strengthen trade enforcement, improve supply-chain monitoring and address support that sustains uneconomic mills.

The agreement does not establish a common tariff or automatically impose new duties. Its impact will depend on national implementation, with Washington encouraging partners to adopt stronger measures against the market distortions it attributes principally to China and other subsidizing producers.