The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party's Critical Minerals Policy Working Group convened its third meeting this afternoon in Washington, D.C. The session, led by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA) and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), focused on the intersection of forced labor and sustainability in the mining of critical minerals. Discussions centered on policies to reduce dependence on entities involved in forced labor violations globally and explored opportunities for U.S. and allied collaboration to address these issues.
Experts presenting at the roundtable included Mr. Peter Mattis, President of The Jamestown Foundation; Ms. Emily De La Bruyere, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and co-founder of Horizon Advisory; and Dr. Jennifer Hinton, Group Manager ESG at Jervois.
Rep. Wittman highlighted China's control over critical mineral supply chains: “People are so intimidated or co-opted by China that rarely do they ever speak out. How do we gather enough efforts around the world to counter that? China has a significant power advantage on these countries that they’re looking to exploit.”
Rep. Castor emphasized the need for policy development: “You all are here…to help us craft some policies that the Congress hopefully can pass to empower our domestic [critical mineral] industries and… to do this with allies and partners across the globe.”
Mr. Mattis described the competitive landscape between the U.S. and China: “If we just spend a little more time on the practice field… we can prepare ourselves... The challenge we face requires bold vision. It’s the nature of the competition we are in. We must take action to mobilize Western industry behind U.S. leadership.”
Ms. De La Bruyere discussed Chinese industrial policy: “Chinese industrial policy is funded by non-market and state support, and it’s fueled by human rights abuses, including forced labor... also total disregard for environmental regulation… In critical minerals and metals, we depend on China.”
Dr. Hinton addressed U.S vulnerabilities in critical mineral supply chains: “The vulnerability of the U.S.—having virtually no cobalt stockpiles, even though [cobalt] is used in things like aerospace and defense… It is a real issue.”
Video highlights from the meeting are available for public broadcast.
