South African Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe has spoken out against special conditions for cooperation with the US in the development of rare earth metals and other critical minerals to the detriment of the rest of the national mining industry. “We do not need a strategy for supplying critical minerals to the US“, Bloomberg quoted him as saying. “We need a strategy for everyone.“
Previously, a number of South African companies involved in the extraction and sale of rare earth metals and critical minerals proposed to the country's government to grant the United States special access to these types of resources.
South Africa has some of the largest reserves of rare earth metals and minerals critical to high-tech technologies. Thus, South Africa is responsible for 88% of the world's reserves of platinum group metals, 80% of manganese and 72% of chromite.