Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the White House’s new critical minerals partner, the first major test of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal, and a growing feud between Colombia and the United States.

Sign up to receive World Brief in your inbox every weekday.

Sign up to receive World Brief in your inbox every weekday.

Sign Up

By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time.

Enter your email

Sign Up
Loading…

Securing Supply Chains

On Monday, Australia joined a growing list of countries that U.S. President Donald Trump has secured critical minerals deals with in an effort to counter China’s near monopoly on supply chains. The agreement, signed during Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to the White House, concludes months of negotiations and could be used as a future bargaining chip for Australia in bilateral trade relations and defense cooperation.

Under the deal, the U.S. and Australian governments will invest more than $3 billion in critical mineral projects in the next six months, including in the building of an advanced gallium refinery in Western Australia with a capacity of 100 metric tons per year. The recoverable resources in those projects are estimated to be worth $53 billion, the White House said.

“In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them,” Trump said on Monday.

China maintains a chokehold on the world’s rare-earth supply chains, accounting for around 85 percent of processing and 92 percent of magnet production. Beijing particularly dominates in the heavy rare earths that underpin much of the U.S. military’s weapons arsenal. Rare earths and critical minerals “have emerged as the Achilles’s heel of the U.S. in the U.S.-China trade discussions,” Ashley Zumwalt-Forbes, a former U.S. Energy Department deputy director for batteries and critical minerals, told FP’s Christina Lu in July.

Still, Australia maintains a substantial supply. Australia is rich in lithium, cobalt, tungsten, and other minerals that are vital in technology development and green energy. The White House is therefore hoping to use Canberra’s resources to reduce U.S. reliance on China.

Just last week, Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods starting Nov. 1 after Beijing restricted the export of such minerals earlier this month. In a similar vein, Albanese’s government has also tried to diversify its export market away from Beijing, even as China remains Canberra’s biggest trade partner, with the latter’s economy reliant on iron ore and coal shipments to China.

But Trump and Albanese are not just relying on a new critical minerals deal to compete with China. On Monday, the two leaders also discussed greater defense cooperation, including strengthening the so-called AUKUS trilateral nuclear submarine deal involving Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. That deal, valued at nearly $240 billion, would see Australia purchase U.S. nuclear-powered submarines in 2032 and then build a new submarine class with the United Kingdom.

It is unclear whether this new critical minerals deal and further military collaboration will convince Trump to reduce U.S. tariffs on Australia. Currently, Washington imposes a 10 percent baseline tariff on most Australian imports; a 50 percent tariff on Australian steel and aluminum; a 50 percent tariff on some copper and products containing copper; a 25 percent tariff on auto parts; a 25 percent tariff on upholstered wooden products, kitchen cabinets, and vanities; and a 10 percent tariff on softwood timber and lumber.

Today’s Most Read

The World This Week

Tuesday, Oct. 21: Japan holds a parliamentary vote to select the country’s next prime minister.

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance begins a three-day trip to Israel.

Wednesday, Oct. 22: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa host Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for the first EU-Egypt summit.

Thursday, Oct. 23: The European Council holds a leaders’ summit in Brussels.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva begins a two-day trip to Indonesia before heading to Malaysia.

Friday, Oct. 24: French lawmakers begin debating the 2026 budget.

Ireland holds a presidential election.

Saturday, Oct. 25: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng meet in Malaysia.

Sunday, Oct. 26: Malaysia hosts the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Argentina holds midterm elections.

Monday, Oct. 27: Trump begins a three-day trip to Japan after attending the ASEAN summit.

What We’re Following

Shaky truce. The fragile cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas faced its first major test on Sunday, when Israel said Hamas militants launched an anti-tank missile and killed two Israeli soldiers near the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The attack prompted a wave of Israeli airstrikes that killed at least 26 Palestinians, and it propelled Israel to suspend humanitarian aid deliveries into the territory. Aid deliveries into Gaza were set to resume on Monday.

Hamas’s armed branch has denied any involvement in the Rafah assault, maintaining that it remains committed to the cease-fire. And the Israeli military has vowed to continue enforcing the truce deal, adding that it will “respond forcefully to any violation of the agreement.”

On Sunday, Trump accused Hamas of being “quite rambunctious” but suggested that perhaps the Hamas leadership wasn’t involved in the attack. The U.S. president stopped short of weighing in on whether he thought the Israeli strikes were justified, though.

According to one senior Egyptian official, negotiators are working “round-the-clock” to de-escalate the situation, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House envoy Steve Witkoff met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. Vance is also expected to meet with Netanyahu during the vice president’s upcoming visit to Israel.

U.S.-Colombia feud. Colombia recalled its ambassador to the United States on Monday after Trump threatened the day before to impose new tariffs on and cut off aid to Bogotá. The U.S. president also warned on Sunday that if Colombian President Gustavo Petro does not take steps to combat alleged drug trafficking in the country, then Washington would do it itself, “and it won’t be done nicely.” On Monday, Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti called these remarks “a threat of invasion or military action against Colombia.”

Colombia and the United States have had a rocky relationship under Trump, butting heads on immigration, trade, and drug trafficking. But the two countries’ feud reached new heights over the weekend, when the U.S. military announced that it had struck a vessel that it claims was associated with Colombia’s left-wing National Liberation Army rebel group.

Without providing evidence, the Trump administration said that the boat was being used for drug shipments. (In recent weeks, the United States has also targeted Venezuelan boats over similar allegations.) But Petro has accused U.S. forces of killing an innocent fisherman onboard. “U.S. government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” Petro wrote on X.

Upending the status quo. Centrist Sen. Rodrigo Paz won Bolivia’s presidential election runoff on Sunday, prompting the end of nearly 20 years of leftist rule under the Movement for Socialism party. Paz secured 54.5 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results, defeating conservative rival Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga’s 45.5 percent.

“We must open Bolivia to the world,” Paz said on Sunday in his victory speech. Paz campaigned on ending the nation’s worst economic crisis in decades; he has proposed reforming Bolivia’s economic model to a more free-market style by phasing out fuel subsidies, ending the country’s fixed exchange rate, and promoting private sector investment. Rural voters appeared to favor Paz’s platform over Quiroga’s austerity measures, which included an International Monetary Fund bailout.

Paz’s Christian Democratic Party does not hold a majority in Bolivia’s Legislative Assembly, though, meaning that the president-elect will now have to form a coalition to govern. Paz will take office on Nov. 8.

Odds and Ends

Mona Lisa is not smiling. In a brazen heist on the world’s largest art museum, at least four burglars broke into the second-floor windows of Paris’s Louvre Museum and stole eight items once belonging to French royalty or imperial rulers, including the tiara of Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III. In a series of calculated moves that would make Danny Ocean proud, the theft took no more than seven minutes, marking what some experts suggest may be the costliest theft ever staged at the French museum.