This week, U.S and Mongolian officials talked about “creative ways” to make sure the landlocked nation, which depends on the goodwill of its neighbors China and Russia, could get crucial minerals onto the global market, a US State Department source said on Friday.
Following a meeting with US Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday in Washington, Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai told Reuters that Mongolia and the US would expand their collaboration in the extraction of rare earth minerals and other minerals with high-tech uses.
He signed the “Open Skies” civil aviation deal with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday, and both parties promised to continue their economic cooperation.
By 2024, a representative of the US State Department told reporters, MIAT Mongolian Airlines would be able to fly directly to an undetermined US airport.
The State Department and the Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry of Mongolia signed a memorandum of understanding in June, and the two parties talked about how to follow it up.
The official said: “We’ve had a lot of discussions over the last few days about specific areas where we can help Mongolia understand what it has, how it can extract it, and how it can produce it.”
We are definitely keen to work with Mongolia to identify innovative ways to gain more control over the exploration, mining, extraction, and production of rare earth elements.
The official responded that Mongolia was in a “tough geopolitical situation” due to being a landlocked country when asked how to assure that it could export such goods without difficulty.
So we discussed some pretty inventive methods to make that… available on the market.
Copper and rare earth are essential for high-tech uses, such as defense technology, as well as US Vice President Joe Biden’s efforts to electrify the auto industry in order to combat climate change.
The US is eager to acquire supplies other than China, which accounted for more than 70% of global rare earth output in 2022.
