Quad, explained.
Each Quad member brings a distinct strength to the critical minerals plan. The foreign ministers of (L-R) Japan, India, the United States and Australia meet at the US State Department in January (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
A counter to Beijing’s resource dominance is best served by coordinated action, but Donald Trump wants to go his own way.
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How America First could undermine the Quad’s critical minerals plansHow America First could undermine the Quad’s critical minerals plans
From Australia’s lithium-rich soils to rare earths in Greenland, critical minerals have become the 21st century’s strategic resource. They power smartphones, satellites, EVs, and missile systems.
Once the domain of geologists and niche investors, critical minerals now dominate strategy rooms. The US Geological Survey identifies 50 minerals essential for modern economies, from cobalt and lithium to gallium and rare earths. Yet access is skewed. China controls 85% of rare earth processing, 65% of nickel refining, and more than half of lithium output, according to the International Energy Agency.
These minerals don’t just fuel economies, they enable them. A rare earth supply shock can halt missile production; a lithium shortfall can derail EV adoption.
As demand surges and China dominates supply chains, the Quad grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States has sought over recent years to mount a credible counterweight. But with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the approach is far less certain. His America-first, deal-centric approach to critical minerals, anchored in executive orders and bilateral agreements, risks unravelling the Quad’s multilateral foundations. As India, Japan, and Australia pursue climate and development goals, Trump’s transactional instincts could fracture the coalition when unity is most needed.
His method, bypassing environmental rules, fast-tracking deep-sea mining, and courting mineral-rich states with mega-deals, like that with Ukraine, is at odds with the Quad’s measured, cooperative ethos.
Each Quad member brings a distinct strength. Australia holds vast lithium and rare earth reserves. Japan excels in urban mining and recycling. The United States provides scale and investment muscle but lags in processing. India’s role is rising fast, with new lithium finds, a growing manufacturing base, and strategic MoUs through KABIL and the Geological Survey of India. India’s inclusion of lithium, cobalt, and nickel in its official Critical Minerals List signals long-term planning. It is also a key player in the Japan-Australia-India Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, adding industrial depth to the Quad’s vision.
The danger is not collapse, but fragmentation. A Quad that devolves into bilateral tracks will lose its collective leverage.
Theoretically, this coalition is ideal, complementary capacities aligned by shared interests. In reality, it’s fraying.
Trump’s revived interest in Greenland’s resources and push for bilateral deals indicate a sharp shift from the multilateral approach taken by the Biden administration. Japan and Australia see critical minerals as bridges to a cleaner economy. Trump sees them as strategic leverage in a renewed cold war with China. India walks a tightrope, aligning energy security with strategic autonomy, seeking transactional reliability over ideological posturing.
The danger is not collapse, but fragmentation. A Quad that devolves into bilateral tracks will lose its collective leverage. Together, the group can shape pricing norms, co-develop resilient supply chains, and offer alternatives to China across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. For instance, the US Department of Defence is quietly advancing a predictive program to estimate prices and supplies of critical minerals such as nickel and cobalt that would be of great help to the Quad in managing their strategic reserves, diversifying suppliers and fast-tracking alternatives.
Under Biden, the Mineral Security Partnership (MSP), which includes all Quad members, pushed sustainable mining in the Global South. Under Trump, the focus is dominance and speed. This divergence risks alienating Japan and Australia, whose domestic audiences remain committed to climate goals. India, too, may hesitate to appear complicit in environmental rollbacks despite the lure of US capital.
To remain effective, the Quad must reconcile climate cooperation with security competition.
What’s needed isn’t rigid alignment, but adaptive design. A flexible framework, tiered by ambition and domestic capability, can preserve cohesion. The Quad could adopt a flexible framework that allows nations to cooperate at different paces, without losing sight of shared strategic goals.
Trump’s return complicates cooperation but also underscores the urgency of resilient and cohesive Quad action.
Bilateral and trilateral sub-alliances within the Quad could also act as accelerators, letting like-minded members move faster while preserving unity. Likewise, robust technology-sharing platforms focused on recycling, material substitution, and efficient extraction can fuse strategic and environmental objectives.
The future of critical minerals need not be a zero-sum contest between Trump’s resource-driven realism and Japan’s green idealism; instead, a middle path, embodied by the Quad Clean Energy Supply Chains Principles, which offers a balanced approach that fuses strategic security with environmental sustainability through secure, transparent, and responsible value chains.
Trump’s return complicates cooperation but also underscores the urgency of resilient and cohesive Quad action. China’s grip on processing and refining won’t be broken by disjointed efforts. Only a coordinated, pragmatic, and resilient Quad can offer a true alternative.
For India, this is both challenge and opportunity. It can steer the coalition toward balanced mineral governance, through a mix of domestic development, third-country investments, and sustainable processing.
Control over critical minerals is increasingly shaping economic influence and strategic choices. To remain relevant, the Quad must turn Trump’s disruption into a chance for deeper cohesion, by building systems that outlast any one leader’s agenda.
About the author
Manish Vaid
Manish Vaid is a Junior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in India with research interests in strategic energy insights and the green transition.
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