> They're talking to China too, to be clear. The EU hosted talks in October. However, the Chinese position on the matter is pretty clear: they're happy to export these minerals for civilian applications, but they don't want to supply foreign militaries, and they're going to enact whatever restrictions are necessary to ensure that stops happening.

This is also why the EU signed a Defense Pact with India [0] and Vietnam [1] last week - critical mineral sourcing from India and Vietnam leveraging Japanese [2] and Korean [3] technology partnerships in both countries drove both deals. Additonally, both Indian and Vietnamese component and defense vendors are now elligible to participate in Rearm Europe/Readiness 2030 along with their Japanese and Korean partners like Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Hyundai, and Samsung.

[0] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/security-and-defence-eu-and-...

[1] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/eu-and-viet-nam-upgrade-rela...

[2] - https://trei.co.in/

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/rare-earths-magn...