Signatures without offtake: the critical-minerals diplomacy boom runs into its binding problem

The diplomatic push is hard to miss. Governments have signed more than 70 critical-minerals agreements and policy frameworks since 2021, with over 50 of those announced in the past 18 months alone, drawing in the major consuming powers — the United States, the European Union, Japan and Australia — in a coordinated race to secure supply and reduce dependence on China. Read as a map, the network looks like progress toward diversification. Read as a contract, it looks like something else: a review of agreements signed through May 2026 finds that more than 60% remain non-binding memorandums, partnerships or cooperation frameworks.

It matters because these instruments are supposed to underpin a multitrillion-dollar effort to dislodge a genuine chokehold: China still controls an estimated 60% to 90% of global rare-earth refining and holds leading positions across several strategic midstream supply chains. A non-binding framework can create political visibility and improve coordination between capitals, and that is not nothing. But it does not secure offtake, guarantee public financing, accelerate permitting, or protect a project from the next change of government.

The United States is the clearest illustration of the pattern. Washington has signed more than 20 critical-minerals agreements in the past 18 months and positioned itself as the most active player in the field, yet only a handful of those are legally binding. The arrangements that actually move investment decisions are the ones that embed operational or financial commitments: price floors, stockpiling mechanisms, co-financing, permitting cooperation, procurement support. Broad declarations of intent do not clear an investment committee.

The more consequential shift may be happening on the other side of the table. Africa hosts more than 60% of global cobalt reserves and significant copper, graphite and rare-earth deposits, yet accounts for a small share of the agreements signed so far — and producer governments are growing markedly more selective about terms. Binding deals so far cluster among a narrow set of strategic partners — Australia, Japan, Argentina, Ukraine and the DRC — while in Europe the Critical Raw Materials Act remains one of the few frameworks carrying legally enforceable diversification requirements.

Timing sharpens all of this. The urgency behind the diplomatic surge stems from US-China trade tension, and the scheduled expiry of the current US-China export-control truce later this year has become the focal point for policymakers and industry alike. The unresolved question is not whether the pacts keep coming. It is whether governments will attach them to the binding commitments — offtake, finance, permitting, procurement — that turn a communique into a refinery.

For the practitioners Doyen serves — investment promotion officers, trade and export staff, embassy economic teams and the ministries around them — the operating lesson is to read the instrument, not the headline. An MOU is a door-opener, not a deal, and its value is mostly as political cover for a conversation that still has to be commercialized.