Well, good morning everybody. And, uh, thank you all for being here. We're, we're honored by the presence of so many world leaders and it speaks to the importance of what Secretary Rubio and the team are working on to fix this critical minerals issue. And I just wanted to let you know that we're honored by your presence and certainly, grateful for you coming to Washington for this very important conversation.
I know there are a lot of very important discussions to be had over the, the rest of the day, and so I want to be relatively brief. First, let me say, uh, thanks to our incredible Secretary of State for putting this group together. Marco's doing an incredible job. And when he asked me to come and speak today, I said, "Man, this is your building.
Why don't you come and give a speech?" And he said, "Well, because I've got five jobs and you've only got one." And so, I figured I might as well do Marco a solid since he's also the archivist and the official White House florist and has a number of other jobs in addition to Secretary of State. So, I'd kick us off and then he's gonna take, uh, take the reins from here.
But let, let me just say a, a few things about what we're doing and why, uh, this, this matters. So, I remember after our very wildly successful military operation of Venezuela, the President of the United States was talking with me and Marco and some of the other senior members of the cabinet, and he was talking just about how important it was that we ensured that the global economy had access to oil and gas many, many years in the future.
And that of course is, you know, one of the reasons why we're interested in Venezuela, is because it has such a critical importance in this all important resource called oil. And as much as we talk about the modern economy, the digital economy, the high-tech economy, the President said something that was very, very important and I think should inform a lot of how we think about future growth, which is that, as much as data centers and technology and all of these incredible things that we're all working on matter, fundamentally, you still have an economy that runs on real things, and there is no realer thing than oil.
And I would add to that, there's no realer thing than critical minerals. And I think a lot of us have learned the hard way in some ways over the last year how much our economies depend on these critical minerals. So, every man and woman, I believe in this room understands what we're confronting to- -- together today.
And I say together, and that is very much something that is at the heart of Secretary Rubio's initiative. And, and as he said, at the heart of what we're trying to do all across the administration is recognize that this is something where our alliances and our friendships can really help one another. We're all on the same team.
We're all rowing in the same direction. I believe that in this room, we have close to 2/3 of the world's GDP represented, and so we have the capacity to make ourselves more independent, more self-reliant, and that's what we should be doing. Now, we know that today, the international market for critical minerals is failing.
It's failing to create domestic markets or dignified jobs for our labor forces, and it's failing to keep our nation safe. Supply chains remain brittle and exceptionally concentrated. Asset and commodity prices are persistently depressed, driven downward by forces beyond any individual country's control. Now, how many times cumulatively, have one of us or many of us in this room heard some variation of the story that I'm about to tell?
A lithium mine, a gallium recovery center, you name it, is announced sometimes with years in planning and financing nearly in place. Then overnight, foreign supply floods the market, the prices collapse, and investors pull out. The project stalls and eventually, the project dies on the fine. We've all seen it firsthand in all of our countries, and the result is a global market where consistent investment is nearly impossible, and it will stay that way so long as prices are erratic and unpredictable.
And that's one of the things that we wanna work on with this initiative. Let's make the prices more predictable and less erratic so that we can support the domestic supply chains and the investment that makes those supply chains possible. Now, across Europe, North America, there are dozens of mining and processing initiatives that have been suspended or completely abandoned because sustained price weakness makes financing impossible.
Time after time, advanced economies with deep capital markets are finding that projects cannot clear costs. The same story plays out elsewhere around the world. In resource-rich developing economies, only a tiny fraction of global mining investment, including from nations, many of them in this room, is reaching the point of actual projects.
We plan, we think about it, we even invest a little bit of money, we do the regulatory work, but so many of them die on the vine. Now, everyone knows that these deposits exist. We've mapped a whole lot of them, and we know they're ready to be mined and processed, but capital can't reach them so long as investors lack confidence that those markets are gonna remain stable for long enough to justify the long-term commitment.
That is the problem that we confront. And even here, in the United States, even with all the incredible things that President Trump and the entire administration has done to eliminate permits, to open up the regulatory environment, we have private financing that we've secured, but even in some cases, even in the United States, some of these projects are struggling to attract investors.
We see telltale signs of a market distorted beyond recognition, one that punishes strategic investment, one that punishes strategic investment, one that punishment- punishes diversification, and one that punishes long-term planning. This is crazy. We should have the kind of global markets, the kind of domestic markets that reward long-term planning, that reward strategic thinking, and that's exactly what we're trying to do. And I think every single one of us represented in this room has become dependent on arrangements we did not choose, and right now, arrangements that we cannot control.
We all face the same vulnerability, access to the things that protect our people and sustain our way of life. Everything from missile defense systems, to energy infrastructure, to advanced manufacturing, to emerging technologies, the fundamental supply chains that support these industries sometimes can vanish in the blink of an eye without any control or influence from any of the countries in this room.
And we in the Trump administration believe it is the business of the government, of the people's government elected just over a year ago to confront such problems and that we want to confront them together. And I think that you're all here, at least I hope you're all here because you all feel the exact same way.
Now, our administration came into office last January, barely a year ago, with a clear mandate to reindustrialize the United States of America and return American workers to the center of our economic policy. And that is what we are doing. And I want to tell you just, just a little story about one of the very first meetings I had with our secretary of commerce and the secretary of the treasury, two great people, two great business leaders.
And I remember saying, "Look, we have our views of the Biden administration. We're not particularly fans, as you may have guessed. We --" But, but, but setting that to the side, surely the Biden administration put together a list of the critical industries, the critical technologies, the critical manufacturing facilities that are supported by these rare earth minerals, these critical minerals.
We may think it's bad work. We may think the people who put it together weren't particularly wise. But surely that gives us some foundation to build on. And I was shocked when our secretary of the commerce and secretary of the treasury came back to me and said, "Actually, we have never done this." The last four years, the Biden administration never sat down and tried to understand what are the critical deficiencies in world supply chains.
That's crazy. It's insane that we ever got to this point. But in just one year, the President of the United States has struck dozens of deals to fix that problem. Domestic and foreign producers are both included in this, and we've, we're trying to ensure durable, end-to-end supply chains for our country, but also for many of our friends.
We've mobilized public financing tools at an unprecedented scale, providing up to $100 billion in lending authority for critical minerals to the office of strategic capital. Marco's now a venture capitalist too. He's got many jobs. We've overturned old orthodoxies and taken direct stakes in high value mining and processing companies.
United States had not built a primary smelter in this country since 1980, before I was born, four years before I was born. In the last month alone, we have announced two, one of which is already fully funded. And on Monday, the Trump administration announced Project Vault, America's first ever domestic critical minerals stockpile.
With these moves, we intend to build an ironclad network of new industrial supply chains to span the entire nation. We're going to create good paying jobs, skilled jobs for the American labor force. And those people, those great workers are going to be securing a new era of prosperity for American families, and I believe, for many people all over the world.
But we seek to make sure our friends and our allies are part of this and that you all are covered as well. Our goal here, and, and the reason why we're doing this, this conference is to align trade policy, development finance, and diplomatic engagement towards a shared strategic objective. And that objective is very simple.
Diversifying, diversifying global supply in the critical minerals market while strengthening the partner countries who help all of us in this shared effort. Over the past year, our administration has signed agreements, we have launched many joint initiatives, and we've committed extensive resources with many of you in this room, with many governments, and our work extends across disparate regions and all stages of the value chain.
We've convened this ministerial in an effort to accelerate that shared work. So this morning, the Trump administration is proposing a concrete mechanism to return the global critical minerals market to a healthier, more competitive state. A preferential trade zone for critical minerals protected from external disruptions through enforceable price floors.
We will establish reference prices for critical minerals at each stage of production, pricing that reflects real world fair market value. And for members of the preferential zone, these reference prices will operate as a floor, maintained through adjustable tariffs to uphold pricing integrity. We wanna eliminate that problem of people flooding into our markets with cheap critical minerals to undercut our domestic manufacturers, because we know, of course, that as soon as they've undercut our domestic manufacturers, because we know, of course, that as soon as they've undercut our domestic makers, they, the domestic markers, they leave the market, and the people who undercut them then jack up the price to a completely unfair level.
We're gonna fix that problem. Together, we want members to form a trading block among allies and partners, one that guarantees American access to American industrial might while also expanding production across the entire zone. The benefits will be immediate and durable. Regardless of how much material flows into the global market, prices within the preferential trade zone will remain consistent.
Over time, our goal within that zone is to create diverse centers of production, stable investment conditions, and supply chains that are immune to the kind of external disruptions that we've already talked about. For those of you who join, we offer you a necessary foundation for private financing and secure access to the critical mineral supplies your nation would require in an emergency or some other contingency.
By regulating imports to preserve free and fair competition within the preferential trading zone, we will elevate our nation's miners and refiners, our investors, and our producers alike. We are all on the same team, and we need to create the economic incentives that reward people for investing and building in our countries.
Membership will be vital for developing economies sinking to expand mining capacity, and it'll be just as important for the advanced economies that rely on these materials to sustain their advanced industries, to sustain their growth and security. And I wanna be clear with every person in this room, while we believe America's market is large enough to create its own critical minerals trading zone, this entire effort will be stronger and far more competitive if we build it together.
So I'm pleased that so many of you here today have already signed on to this plan. Some of you have not, and for those not yet there, we hope that today's discussions will encourage you to finalize those agreements as quickly as possible. Now I know you're gonna be hearing from a lot of others in our administration, including our great secretary of Rubio, I think really the greatest secretary of state the United States has ever had, and other senior administrators, um, in, in our, in our team.
And I know that Ambassador Greer, our great trade representative, will present further specifics about what he'll be negotiating, what we're calling the Agreement on Trade and Critical Minerals. Knowing Jamieson, I know it will be a very productive session, and I know it will be a very detailed session. As, as all of you who know Jamieson well, he is a guy who gets into the details because he knows that that's where the substance of an agreement can really be made.
So I wanna close, but before I do, let me just reiterate. We here, I think all of us are friends. We've all spent many years describing this problem. Before I was ever in politics, I would hear politicians and global leaders talk about this problem. For too many of those years, we talked about it, but we refused to actually solve it. The framework before us is a change.
It is a practical and enforceable approach to solving the problem, not just complaining about it. Many of you have helped us design it, and we're, of course, constructing it together in real time. So to those of you still on the fence, I say let's move, let's move together. Before you is a chance to lead, to secure your nation's ability to build, to produce, to defend itself.
What, what is before all of us is an opportunity at self-reliance, that we never have to rely on anybody else except for each other for the critical minerals necessary to sustain our industries and to sustain growth. So I propose that we come together and we shape a market worthy of the great men and women of our countries who depend on that market.
Again, I wanna thank you all for being here. I'm honored by your presence. The president sends his very best regards, and I look forward to everything that we're gonna accomplish together. God bless you all, and have fun today.