Advancing Role of US in India's Critical Mineral Diplomacy

On 23 December, the Mines Secretary, V.L. Kantha Rao, announced India's plans to launch the Critical Mineral Mission (CMM) in 2025, bringing together multiple ministries, industries, scientists and academia in a coordinated effort to secure minerals with ever-growing applications.

- Araudra Singh

The mandate of the CMM, first proposed during Finance Minister Sitharaman's Union Budget 2024-2025 speech, would include domestic production, recycling, and overseas acquisition of critical minerals, besides technology development, a skilled workforce, extended producer responsibility framework, and a financing mechanism.

CMM's directives are reflective of India's aspirations of securing domestic supply chains to mitigate strategic vulnerabilities, while also leveraging foreign reserves, technology and capital vis-à-vis trusted bilateral and multilateral partnerships.

While resource-rich countries like Argentina and Australia, among others, have often been discussed vis-à-vis India's critical mineral diplomacy, one country, albeit not minerals-lush, yet potentially key to India's CMM is the US—largely missing from the discourse.

Notwithstanding President Trump's recent executive order beginning the withdrawal process of Washington from the Paris Accords, three fundamental convergences steer India-US critical minerals cooperation.

Firstly, there are 26 common designated critical minerals shared by both partners, which is the greatest commonality India has with any of the countries with a critical minerals strategy.

Secondly, bilateral cooperation in critical minerals is key for not only attaining targets of the Paris Accords but also landmark bilateral clean energy agreements, including India-US Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership, and Initiative to Build Safe and Secure Global Clean Energy Supply Chains. These agreements require several common designated minerals (antimony, lithium, tellurium, etc.) for targeted manufacturing of various renewable energy components, besides electric vehicle (EV) and energy storage batteries.