China confirmed that its suspension of export controls on rare earths will extend to the EU, the bloc’s trade chief Maroš Šefčovič said early Saturday after high-level talks with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao on Friday. Beijing agreed this week to delay its latest round of rare earth export restrictions for one year, following a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday. This prompted the EU to swiftly seek assurances that the suspension would also cover the bloc. “China confirmed that the suspension of the October export controls applies to the EU,” Šefčovič wrote on X. “Both sides reaffirmed commitment to continue engagement on improving the implementation of export control policies,” he added. China has tightened its grip on critical minerals, expanding export controls on rare earths and other materials vital to the clean-tech and defense industries. The EU, which relies on China for about 99 percent of its rare earth supply, has been scrambling to reduce its dependency. “The EU welcomed China’s 12-month suspension of the relevant export controls published on 9 October 2025,” European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said in a statement. “This is an appropriate and responsible step in the context of ensuring stable global trade flows in a critically important area.”

BRUSSELS — As Beijing asserts itself amid global trade tensions, it is playing an ace it has kept up its sleeve for decades: control over the flow of minerals Western countries desperately need to fuel their green, digital and defense ambitions.  When U.S. President Donald Trump last week hailed a draft “framework” with Beijing to end their trade dispute, he singled out China’s export controls on seven rare earth elements — minerals deemed “critical” because they are used in the production of high-tech products such as magnets used in cars. “Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with [Chinese] President Xi and me,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China.” In return, the U.S. agreed to drop plans to revoke Chinese student visas. But the situation remains tense — at the G7 summit in Canada, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen accused China of “weaponizing” its leading position in producing and refining critical raw materials. At the summit, Western leaders were expected to pledge to implement a “G7 critical minerals action plan.” But their draft statement didn’t name-check China, instead obliquely mentioning “non-market policies and practices in the critical minerals sector.” “China has the upper hand in the short term,” said Philip Andrews-Speed, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Beijing’s export controls are “much more powerful than a tariff that Trump is putting on,” he added.  Those controls — initially imposed in April and framed as a response to Trump’s tariffs — sparked outrage and alarm among industry bosses and officials in the U.S. and across the EU. They apply to all countries, requiring companies to be granted a license for each shipment.  Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič earlier this month called the situation “alarming” for the European car industry as well as for industry more broadly. “Rare earths and permanent magnets are absolutely essential for industrial production,” he argued, with the magnets an essential component in everything from smartphones, TVs and computers to car and wind turbine engines and defense applications.  DECADES IN THE MAKING It’s a gambit Beijing has skillfully crafted for decades — and one that projected market developments are only set to buttress. China has a virtual monopoly in the sector, dominating the entire supply chain from the extraction of rare earths to their processing and the manufacture of permanent magnets.  According to the International Energy Agency, the country accounts for some 61 percent of rare earths extraction and 92 percent of refining. Moreover, it provides nearly 99 percent of the EU’s supply of the 17 rare earths, as well as about 98 percent of its rare earth permanent magnets. Global demand for these minerals is expected to increase by 50 to 60 percent by 2040. “Over the last few years, China has managed to build up this kind of defence system,” said a person from the Chinese business sector, granted anonymity to speak candidly. That gives Beijing “confidence” on the international stage, they added. Back in 1987, when the U.S. still dominated mining and the metals and minerals were of far less — and certainly not “critical” — importance, then-ruler Deng Xiaoping said: “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths.” Deng, China’s most important figure from the late 1970s until his death, was at the time touring Baotou in the interior of Mongolia, China’s rare earth center.  Since then, Beijing has heavily invested in growing its monopoly and capitalizing on it.  In 2020 it overhauled its export control regime, passing an Export Control Law that largely emulates U.S. legislation. Four years later it took another step in building a domestic legal foundation by introducing export control regulations for so-called dual-use items that can be used for military and civilian purposes. It has also shown it doesn’t shy away from using these tools. In 2010 China briefly restricted rare earth exports to Japan; more recently it has imposed export restrictions on gallium, germanium and antimony (which are also deemed critical minerals) and banned the export of rare earth processing equipment.  While the person from the Chinese business sector quoted above argued that the export control system is a “tit-for-tat measure for the U.S.,” Beijing decided — in its latest move — to target all countries rather than just the U.S. That’s also leaving a mark on European industry. “All export licenses now have to be re-approved and there has been a temporary de facto export ban, meaning we are experiencing a backlog in the approval of new export licenses, which is still affecting supply chains today,” said Stefan Steinicke, a raw materials expert at the Federation of German Industries, a business lobby group. The controls not only give the Middle Kingdom more leverage in trade talks with the EU by sending a warning to Brussels not to team up with Washington — they also afford it valuable insight into rare earth supply chains. Earlier this month Beijing agreed to set up a “green channel” for European companies to speed up the approval of licenses. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN In response, industry bodies are pushing for the EU to accelerate its own efforts to diversify supply away from China, alongside pursuing diplomatic efforts. James Watson, director general at metals lobby Eurometaux, called on Brussels to “continue to invest in international cooperation,” to “support recycling efforts and the circular economy in the EU,” and to push “domestic production of certain metals in the EU.” But as keen as the EU is to play catch-up and slash its dependence on China for the minerals — as recently exemplified by its designation of several rare earth extraction and processing projects within and outside the bloc as “strategic” — it faces a mammoth task.  Rare earths aren’t as rare to find as their name suggests — they are, however, difficult to extract and refine in economically viable quantities, with all of the biggest reserves found outside the bloc’s borders.  “The outlook for substantially denting China’s dominance in the next years is pretty grim,” said Andrews-Speed, the Oxford researcher. “Twenty, 30 years ahead, anything can happen with technology and trade.”  With more minerals set to be used as levers in the future, China’s chokehold on rare earth minerals is only the beginning.  Its sway over rare earths is an “extreme case,” but China also dominates a vast array of other minerals such as lithium and cobalt and is “increasingly moving … downstream in the value chain,” said Edoardo Righetti, a researcher in the energy, resources and climate change unit at the Centre for European Policy Studies think tank.  Giorgio Leali and Koen Verhelst contributed to this report from Kananaskis, Canada. This story has been updated.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Sunday said he was hopeful about “long-term trade advantages” between the European Union and the United States, in rare positive comments from the Trump administration about EU-U.S. trade. Ahead of a meeting Sunday in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Vance called Meloni “a bridge builder” between the the European Union and the U.S. “I think we’ll have a great conversation and hopefully it will be the beginning of some long-term trade negotiations and some long-term trade advantages between both Europe and the United States,” Vance said. It’s the first time since President Donald Trump unleashed his global tariff war last month that a member of his administration has spoken positively in public about the prospects of advantageous American trade with the EU. Von der Leyen stressed that “what unites us is that, at the end, we want … to have a good deal for both sides.” So far, the Trump administration has slapped a 10 percent tariff on all imports and 25 percent duties on products like steel, aluminum, cars and car parts, all of which apply to Europe as well as other parts of the world. Another 10 percent points of U.S. tariff on EU imports is paused until early July, but it has taken Washington until last week — almost half-way through that suspension — to present Brussels with an overview of what it hopes to achieve, which POLITICO first reported on last Wednesday. Von der Leyen acknowledged that by adding that “it is important — now [that] we have exchanged papers — that our experts are deep diving, discussing the details.” Trump himself has baselessly claimed the EU was created to “screw” the U.S. and said that the 27-country bloc is “nastier than China.” Officials in his administration also routinely ignore the trade surplus in services that the U.S. enjoys with Europe, which all but balances out the larger amount of goods flowing westward. Sitting between Vance and von der Leyen, Meloni indeed seemed at ease with the idea of mediating between the two sides. When she visited Trump in the White House last month, she invited him to Italy so meet European leaders there. “I am very proud to have the opportunity today to host two of the leaders of the United States and the European Union to begin a dialogue,” Meloni said. “We know how important our business relationships are and we are obviously here to discuss all this.” The trilateral talk happened after the inauguration of new Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican, with Vance, a Catholic himself, confessing “the United States is very proud of him, very thrilled with him.”

LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer has defended his decision to put a review of online safety rules on the table in trade talks with the United States. Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Starmer said that although Britain needs strong internet safety rules to protect children, it also needs to remain a pioneer of free speech. POLITICO first reported last week that a review of the implementation of the Online Safety Act and the U.K.’s new digital markets rulebook were included in a potential U.S.-U.K. deal. The Digital Services Tax, a two percent levy on the revenue of tech companies, is also on the table. All three policies have attracted fierce opposition by the U.S. tech industry. When asked about the ongoing negotiations during a public hearing on Tuesday afternoon by Chi Onwurah, chair of the House of Commons’ Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, Starmer said: “There are questions about the appropriate way to tax digital services. There are questions about how technology impacts with free speech.” But he added: “I have been very clear, in my view, that we need to have an arrangement for digital tax of some sort. And equally, we need to be pioneers of free speech, which we have been for very many years in this country. “But at the same time, we rightly protect under the Online Safety Act further provisions of which are coming into force pretty quickly, and when it comes to dealing with pedophiles and protecting children, I take a pretty strong line that we take the necessary measures in order to do so.” Starmer was less firm on misinformation. When asked by Onwurah about the role of social media stoking riots last summer after murders in Southport, Starmer said there was a need to be “proportionate.” Lib Dem MP Layla Moran also asked Starmer during the Liaison Committee session if parts of the NHS, including U.S. market access to NHS data, were on the table in the talks. He avoided answering directly saying: “I’ve been very protective of the approach we take to the NHS in any dealings with any other country, because it is our greatest asset and we’re not trading it away.” But he added: “I do think there’s work we can do on what use we make of that data, not so much in trade agreements, but right here in the United Kingdom in terms of advancing our own understanding of medicines and preventative measures.” Moran’s question came after the government announced on Monday that it would set up a new “Health Data Research Service” for NHS data, which would provide a “secure single access point to national-scale datasets, slashing red tape for researchers.” Talks are continuing on a draft deal between the U.S. and the U.K., with a U.K. government spokesperson saying last week they wouldn’t set out a timeline on it.

Poland says it’s prepared to seek alternatives to Elon Musk’s Starlink network to provide satellite internet access to Ukraine if the tech billionaire proves to be an “unreliable provider.”  Warsaw is Ukraine’s largest donor to finance terminals for the space-based communications system, which is a critical tool in Kyiv’s fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.  But Musk is reportedly threatening to pull Kyiv’s access to his satellite network, and in an X post on Sunday, he repeated his threats, claiming that Ukraine’s “entire front line would collapse” if the troops were cut off from Starlink, which is operated by Musk-owned SpaceX.  In response to Musk’s post, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski emphasized that the Polish Digitization Ministry is one of the largest providers of Starlink to Ukraine, with Warsaw funding half of the 42,000 Starlink terminals operating in the country at a cost of about $50 million a year. “If SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers,” Sikorski wrote in his post on X, calling out the “ethics” from Musk’s side “of threatening the victim of aggression.” As POLITICO reported a week ago, the European Commission is already looking into how it can help Ukraine secure alternative satellite communications capacity in the wake of Musk’s threats.  Musk framed his Sunday post as a message to end the war in Ukraine, but according to press reports, the Starlink threats may be part of Washington’s strategy to pressure Kyiv into a deal over the Ukraine’s critical minerals.  A possible mineral deal between Ukraine and the U.S. could be on the table in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, when delegations from the two countries will meet there for the first time since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in late February. 

DAVOS, Switzerland — Ursula von der Leyen will lead her entire European Commission team on a visit to India in late February, on a mission to forge a new strategic partnership and advance talks on a free-trade deal, her trade chief Maroš Šefčovic told POLITICO Wednesday. Šefčovič, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, said he had just spent “two very intense days” with Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal in Brussels to assess progress in the trade talks, which have stuttered on and off since 2007. “Both of us are very much interested in accelerating our free-trade negotiations,” the Slovak commissioner said in an interview. “The visit of the whole College [of Commissioners] to India, first and foremost, is a very strong political signal … We are going to really fulfill this strategic partnership with new areas of sectoral cooperation.” On top of the Commission’s visit to India, penciled in for around Feb. 27 and 28., the two sides will hold a meeting of their Trade and Technology Council, a bilateral forum that addresses a range of policy issues. Von der Leyen announced Tuesday that her team’s first major trip since it was confirmed in December would be to the world’s most populous nation, showcasing it as part of a push to broaden the European Union’s relationships as protectionist Donald Trump returns to the White House and relations between Brussels and Beijing cool. Von der Leyen and Šefčovič, one of her most trusted aides, have chalked up a series of recent trade wins — including a long-awaited agreement with the Mercosur group of South American nations, and upgrades to deals with Switzerland and Mexico. In the Asia-Pacific, the EU has also just resumed talks with Malaysia after a hiatus of more than a decade.

One of France’s most prominent newspapers, Le Monde, is abandoning Elon Musk’s X, the paper’s editor-in-chief announced Monday. In his editorial, Jérôme Fenoglio said the burgeoning alliance between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and “social platform bosses” like Musk and Mark Zuckerberg poses a global threat to free access to reliable information. Le Monde’s move comes just hours before Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, and is in line with a fairly broad movement of institutions — including news organizations as well as prominent political officials — to leave X in France. According to Fenoglio, Trump is at the forefront of a battle that pits facts against lies. “As a social network specifically focused on news, Twitter, renamed X, has always been a major player in this battle,” Fenoglio said. Fenoglio added that since Musk took over the company in 2022, the platform has become an extension of his political action. Because of this “mixture of ideology and commerce,” Le Monde’s content became “more and more invisible,” leading the company to reduce its publishing to an automated feed. “But today, the intensification of Musk’s activism, the officialization of his role within the Trumpist power apparatus, the growing toxicity of the exchanges, lead us to believe that the usefulness of our presence weighs less than the many side effects we suffer,” he said. “We have therefore decided to stop sharing our content on this network as long as it operates in this way, and we recommend that Le Monde journalists do the same. We will also redouble our vigilance on several other platforms, notably TikTok and Meta, following Mark Zuckerberg’s worrying statements,” Fenoglio added, referring to the Meta chief’s recent political heel-turn.

The city of Paris has quit the platform X over concerns about disinformation and hate speech. The PR account’s exit comes at the same time as French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing for X owner Elon Musk and United States President-elect Donald Trump to attend Paris’ flagship artificial intelligence summit next month. In a farewell post, the account wrote that it had become “complex” and then “impossible” to use the platform. “Complex because the network reduces the reach of factual and objective messages. Impossible because the network fuels hate speech and disinformation, whose lack of moderation has become problematic,” it said. “It’s a difficult but essential decision to restore a society based on peaceful spaces of expression,” the statement continued, promoting its Bluesky account.  “More than ever, Paris is attached to facts and the veracity of information.” The account for Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo already left the platform at the end of 2023, calling the site a “weapon of mass destruction of our democracies.”  Musk bought X, formerly Twitter, in 2022. “This platform and its owner deliberately act to exacerbate tensions and conflicts … Let’s not be mistaken. This is a very clear political project that wants to abandon democracy and its values for powerful private interests,” Hidalgo wrote in her last post. Musk is facing mainstream political backlash in Europe after wading into domestic politics in Germany and the United Kingdom.  Elon Musk bought X, formerly Twitter, in 2022. | Apu Gomes/Getty Images Macron and the billionaire tech mogul have enjoyed cordial relations in the past, with Musk joining Trump at last month’s reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral and donating 100 Starlink terminals to the cyclone-ravaged French overseas territory of Mayotte. Last week, however, the French president took a not-so-thinly veiled swipe at the SpaceX boss, accusing him of meddling in European politics and backing what the French president called a “reactionary movement” across the world.