China’s export controls, a more interventionist G7 agenda and Washington’s widening network of mineral partnerships have transformed the market in which Canada’s critical-minerals strategy must operate. Ottawa now needs to connect domestic industrial policy, international partnerships, and its North American economic relationship into a single strategy.
In 2025, China turned longstanding concerns about critical-mineral concentration into an immediate industrial-security challenge. Export controls on heavy rare earths and magnets disrupted manufacturers abroad, while broader measures announced in October threatened batteries, processing equipment and even foreign-made products incorporating Chinese materials or technology.
Those wider restrictions were suspended for a year, but the leverage remains. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that their full application could impact US$6.5 trillion in annual downstream production outside China.
This is the environment in which Canada must update its 2022 Critical Minerals Strategy. The original strategy established a useful foundation for expanding responsibly produced supply and strengthening Canada’s participation in clean-energy and advanced-manufacturing value chains. But the strategic context has changed. Governments are now using export controls, investment screening, tariffs, procurement, stockpiles, and public financing as instruments of economic security.
A revised strategy must therefore connect three levels of policy that have so far evolved unevenly: a selective domestic industrial strategy; the international resilience and investment architecture Canada has helped build through the G7; and a renewed North American bargain that protects Canada’s place in U.S. mineral and industrial supply chains.
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