Finance ministers from the G7 and a wider circle of major economies used a Washington meeting to elevate rare earths from a specialist “industrial policy” topic into a mainstream macro-financial coordination problem. Convened by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the gathering brought together the G7, the European Union, and invited partners including Australia, India, South Korea, and Mexico, countries that collectively represent a large majority of global demand for critical minerals.

The core objective was to identify practical levers that can reduce dependence on China’s rare-earth supply chains without trying to engineer a wholesale rupture in trade, which U.S. officials framed as “prudent de-risking over decoupling.”

Aluminum prices have surged to their highest level in more than four years as renewed military exchanges between the United States and Iran escalated supply risks across the Middle East, pushing the metal to the top of the industrial commodities complex amid an increasingly severe physical squeeze.

Benchmark aluminum on the London Metal Exchange touched 3,707.50 dollars per metric ton, matching a late-May peak and reaching its highest point since March 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine first sent metal markets into turmoil.

The U.S. trade landscape underwent a dramatic shift on Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs took effect, targeting Canada, Mexico, and China in what could become one of the most disruptive trade policies in modern history. The new measures impose a 25% tariff on nearly all imports from Canada and Mexico, sparing only Canadian energy products, which will instead face a 10% duty.

Additionally, tariffs on Chinese imports have doubled to 20%, further escalating tensions with the world’s second-largest economy.