The Trump administration wants to work with traditional allies to secure new supplies of critical minerals. But months of aggression toward allies, culminating with since-aborted threats to seize Greenland, have left many cool to the overtures. While the State Department has drawn a lengthy list of participating countries for its first Critical Minerals Ministerial scheduled for Wednesday, a number of those attending are hesitant to commit to partnering with the U.S. in creating a supply chain that bypasses China’s current chokehold on those materials, according to five Washington-based diplomats of countries invited to or attending the event. State Department cables obtained by POLITICO also show wariness among some countries about signing onto a framework agreement pledging joint cooperation in sourcing and processing critical minerals. Representatives from more than 50 countries are expected to attend the meeting, according to the State Department — all gathered to discuss the creation of tech supply chains that can rival Beijing’s. But the meeting comes just two weeks since President Donald Trump took to the stage at Davos to call on fellow NATO member Denmark to allow a U.S. takeover of Greenland, and that isn’t sitting well. “We all need access to critical minerals, but the furor over Greenland is going to be the elephant in the room,” said a European diplomat. In the immediate run-up to the event there’s “not a great deal of interest from the European side,” the person added. The individual and others were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic relationships. Their concerns underscore how international dismay at the Trump administration’s foreign policy and trade actions may kneecap its other global priorities. The Trump administration had had some success over the past two months rallying countries to support U.S. efforts to create secure supply chains for critical minerals, including a major multilateral agreement called the Pax Silica Declaration. Now those gains could be at risk. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wants foreign countries to partner with the U.S. in creating a supply chain for the 60 minerals (including rare earths) that the U.S. Geological Survey deems “vital to the U.S. economy and national security that face potential risks from disrupted supply chains.” They include antimony, used to produce munitions; samarium, which goes into aircraft engines; and germanium, which is essential to fiber-optics. The administration also launched a $12 billion joint public-private sector “strategic critical minerals stockpile” for U.S. manufacturers, a White House official said Monday. Trump has backed away from his threats of possibly deploying the U.S. military to seize Greenland from Denmark. But at Davos he demanded “immediate negotiations” with Copenhagen to transfer Greenland’s sovereignty to the U.S. That makes some EU officials leery of administration initiatives that require cooperation and trust. “We are all very wary,” said a second European diplomat. Rubio’s critical minerals framework “will not be an easy sell until there is final clarity on Greenland.” Trump compounded the damage to relations with NATO countries on Jan. 22 when he accused member country troops that deployed to support U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 of having shirked combat duty. “The White House really messed up with Greenland and Davos,” a third European diplomat said. “They may have underestimated how much that would have an impact.” The Trump administration needs the critical minerals deals to go through. The U.S. has been scrambling to find alternative supply lines for a group of minerals called rare earths since Beijing temporarily cut the U.S. off from its supply last year. China — which has a near-monopoly on rare earths — relented in the trade truce that Trump brokered with China’s leader Xi Jinping in South Korea in October. The administration is betting that foreign government officials that attend Wednesday’s event also want alternative sources to those materials. “The United States and the countries attending recognize that reliable supply chains are indispensable to our mutual economic and national security and that we must work together to address these issues in this vital sector,” the State Department statement said in a statement. The administration has been expressing confidence that it will secure critical minerals partnerships with the countries attending the ministerial, despite their concerns over Trump’s bellicose policy. “There is a commonality here around countering China,” Ruth Perry, the State Department’s acting principal deputy assistant secretary for ocean, fisheries and polar affairs, said at an industry event on offshore critical minerals in Washington last week. “Many of these countries understand the urgency.” Speaking at a White House event Monday, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum indicated that 11 nations would sign on to a critical minerals framework with the United States this week and another 20 are considering doing so. Greenland has rich deposits of rare earths and other minerals. But Denmark isn’t sending any representatives to the ministerial, according to the person familiar with the event’s planning. Trump said last month that a framework agreement he struck with NATO over Greenland’s future included U.S. access to the island’s minerals. Greenland’s harsh climate and lack of infrastructure in its interior makes the extraction of those materials highly challenging. Concern about the longer term economic and geostrategic risks of turning away from Washington in favor of closer ties with Beijing — despite the Trump administration’s unpredictability — may work in Rubio’s favor on Wednesday. “We still want to work on issues where our viewpoints align,” an Asian diplomat said. “Critical minerals, energy and defense are some areas where there is hope for positive movement.” State Department cables obtained by POLITICO show the administration is leaning on ministerial participants to sign on to a nonbinding framework agreement to ensure U.S. access to critical minerals. The framework establishes standards for government and private investment in areas including mining, processing and recycling, along with price guarantees to protect producers from competitors’ unfair trade policies. The basic template of the agreement being shared with other countries mirrors language in frameworks sealed with Australia and Japan and memorandums of understanding inked with Thailand and Malaysia last year. Enthusiasm for the framework varies. The Philippine and Polish governments have both agreed to the framework text, according to cables from Manila on Jan. 22 and Warsaw on Jan. 26. Romania is interested but “proposed edits to the draft MOU framework,” a cable dated Jan. 16 said. As of Jan. 22 India was noncommittal, telling U.S. diplomats that New Delhi “could be interested in exploring a memorandum of understanding in the future.” European Union members Finland and Germany both expressed reluctance to sign on without clarity on how the framework aligns with wider EU trade policies. A cable dated Jan. 15 said Finland “prefers to observe progress in the EU-U.S. discussions before engaging in substantive bilateral critical mineral framework negotiations.” Berlin also has concerns that the initiative may reap “potential retaliation from China,” according to a cable dated Jan. 16. Trump’s threats over the past two weeks to impose 100 percent tariffs on Canada for cutting a trade deal with China and 25 percent tariffs on South Korea for allegedly slow-walking legislative approval of its U.S. trade agreement are also denting enthusiasm for the U.S. critical minerals initiative. Those levies “have introduced some uncertainty, which naturally leads countries to proceed pragmatically and keep their options open,” a second Asian diplomat said. There are also doubts whether Trump will give the initiative the long-term backing it will require for success. “There’s a sense that this could end up being a TACO too,” a Latin American diplomat said, using shorthand for Trump’s tendency to make big threats or announcements that ultimately fizzle. Analysts, too, argue it’s unlikely the administration will be able to secure any deals amid the fallout from Davos and Trump’s tariff barrages. “We’re very skeptical on the interest and aptitude and trust in trade counterparties right now,” said John Miller, an energy analyst at TD Cowen who tracks critical minerals. “A lot of trading partners are very much in a wait-and-see perspective at this point saying, ‘Where’s Trump really going to go with this?’” And more unpredictability or hostility by the Trump administration toward longtime allies could push them to pursue critical mineral sourcing arrangements that exclude Washington. “The alternative is that these other countries will go the Mark Carney route of the middle powers, cooperating among themselves quietly, not necessarily going out there and saying, ‘Hey, we’re cutting out the U.S.,’ but that these things just start to crop up,” said Jonathan Czin, a former China analyst at the CIA now at the Brookings Institution. “Which will make it more challenging and allow Beijing to play divide and conquer over the long term.” Felicia Schwartz contributed to this report.

The center-right European People’s Party is eyeing “better implementation” of the Lisbon Treaty to better prepare the EU for what it sees as historic shifts in the global balance of power involving the U.S., China and Russia, EPP leader Manfred Weber said on Saturday. Speaking at a press conference on the second day of an EPP Leaders Retreat in Zagreb, Weber highlighted the possibility of broadening the use of qualified majority voting in EU decision-making and developing a practical plan for military response if a member state is attacked. Currently EU leaders can use qualified majority voting on most legislative proposals, from energy and climate issues to research and innovation. But common foreign and security policy, EU finances and membership issues, among other areas, need a unified majority. This means that on issues such as sanctions against Russia, one country can block agreement, as happened last summer when Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico vetoed a package of EU measures against Moscow — a veto that was eventually lifted. Such power in one country’s hands is something that the EPP would like to change.  As for military solidarity, Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty obliges countries to provide “aid and assistance by all the means in their power” if an EU country is attacked. For Weber, the formulation under European law is stronger than NATO’s Article 5 collective defense commitment. However, he stressed that the EU still lacks a clear operational plan for how the clause would work in practice. Article 42.7 was previously used when France requested that other EU countries make additional contributions to the fight against terrorism, following the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015.  Such ideas were presented as the party with a biggest grouping in the European Parliament — and therefore the power to shape EU political priorities — presented its strategic focus for 2026, with competitiveness as its main priority.  Keeping the pulse on what matters in 2026  The EPP wants to unleash the bloc’s competitiveness through further cutting red tape, “completing” the EU single market, diversifying supply chains, protecting economic independence and security and promoting innovation including in AI, chips and biotech, among other actions, according to its list 2026 priorities unveiled on Saturday. On defense, the EPP is pushing for a “360-degree” security approach to safeguard Europe against growing geopolitical threats, “addressing state and non-state threats from all directions,” according to the document. The EPP is calling for enhanced European defense capabilities, including a stronger defense market, joint procurement of military equipment, and new strategic initiatives to boost readiness. The party also stressed the need for better protection against cyberattacks and hybrid threats, and robust measures to counter disinformation campaigns targeting EU institutions and societies. On migration and border security, the EPP backs tougher asylum admissibility rules, faster returns, and strengthened external borders, including reinforced Frontex operations and improved digital systems like the Entry/Exit System.  The party also urged a Demographic Strategy for Europe amid the continent’s shrinking and aging population. The text, initiated by Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), member of the EPP, wants to see demographic considerations integrated into EU economic governance, cohesion funds, and policymaking, while boosting family support, intergenerational solidarity, labor participation, skills development, mobility and managed immigration.  Demographic change is “the most important issue, which is not really intensively discussed in the public discourse,” Weber said. “That’s why we want to highlight this, we want to underline the importance.” 

LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is braced for a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping — and there’ll be more than a few elephants in the room. Though Britain has improved its relationship with China following the more combative approach of previous Conservative administrations, a litany of concerns over national security and human rights continues to dog Labour’s attempted refresh. Starmer, who will meet the Chinese president in Beijing Thursday morning, told reporters engaging with China means he can discuss “issues where we disagree.”   “You know that in the past, on all the trips I’ve done, I’ve always raised issues that need to be raised,” he said during a huddle with journalists on the British Airways flight to China on Tuesday evening. In a sign of how hard it can be to engage on more tricky subjects, Chinese officials bundled the British press out of the room when Starmer tried to bring up undesirable topics the last time the pair met. From hacking and spying to China’s foreign policy aims, POLITICO has a handy guide to all the ways Starmer could rile up the Chinese president. 1) STATE-SPONSORED HACKING China is one of the biggest offenders in cyberspace and is regarded by the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) — part of Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency — as a “highly sophisticated threat actor.” The Electoral Commission said it has taken three years to recover from a Chinese hack of its systems. The Chinese state, and private companies linked directly or obliquely to its cyber and espionage agencies, have been directly accused by the British government, its intelligence agencies and allies. As recently as last month, the U.K. government sanctioned two Chinese companies — both named by the U.S. as linked to Chinese intelligence — for hacking Britain and its allies. 2) ACTIONS AGAINST BRITISH PARLIAMENTARIANS Politicians in Britain who have spoken out against Chinese human rights abuses and hostile activity have been censured by Beijing in recent years. This includes the sanctioning of 5 British MPs in 2021, including the former security minister Tom Tugendhat, who has been banned from entering the country. Last year, Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse was refused entry to Hong Kong while attempting to visit her grandson, and was turned back by officials. The government said that the case was raised with Chinese authorities during a visit to China by Douglas Alexander, who was trade minister at the time. 3) JIMMY LAI In 2020, the British-Hong Kong businessman and democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai was arrested under national security laws imposed by Beijing and accused of colluding with a foreign state. Lai — who is in his late 70s — has remained in prison ever since. Last month, a Hong Kong court convicted Lai of three offenses following what his supporters decried as a 156-day show trial. He is currently awaiting the final decisions relating to sentencing — with bodies including the EU parliament warning that a life imprisonment could have severe consequences for Europe’s relationship with China if he is not released. Lai’s son last year called for the U.K. government to make his father’s release a precondition of closer relations with Beijing.  4) REPRESSION OF DISSIDENTS China, like Iran, is involved in the active monitoring and intimidation of those it considers dissidents on foreign soil — known as trans-national repression. China and Hong Kong law enforcement agencies have repeatedly issued arrest warrants for nationals living in Britain and other Western countries.  British police in 2022 were forced to investigate an assault on a protester outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester. The man was beaten by several men after being dragged inside the grounds of the diplomatic building during a demonstration against Xi Jinping. China removed six officials from Britain before they could be questioned. 5) CHINESE SPY SCANDALS Westminster was last year rocked by a major Chinese spying scandal involving two British men accused of monitoring British parliamentarians and passing information back to Beijing. Though the case against the two men collapsed, the MI5 intelligence agency still issued an alert to MPs, peers and their staff, warning Chinese intelligence officers were “attempting to recruit people with access to sensitive information about the British state.” It is not the only China spy allegation to embroil the upper echelons of British society. Yang Tengbo, who in 2024 outed himself as an alleged spy banned from entering the U.K., was a business associate of Andrew Windsor , the` disgraced brother of King Charles. Christine Lee, a lawyer who donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to a Labour MP, was the subject of a security alert from British intelligence. In October, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, said that his officers had “intervened operationally” against China that month. 6) EMBASSY DING DONG This month — after a protracted political and planning battle — the government approved the construction of a Chinese “super-embassy” in London. This came after a litany of security concerns were raised by MPs and in the media, including the building’s proximity to sensitive cables, which it is alleged could be used to aid Chinese spying. Britain has its own embassy headache in China. Attempts to upgrade the U.K. mission in Beijing were reportedly blocked while China’s own London embassy plan was in limbo. 7) SANCTIONS EVASION China has long been accused of helping facilitate sanctions evasion for countries such as Russia and Iran. Opaque customs and trade arrangements have allegedly allowed prohibited shipments of oil and dual-use technology to flow into countries that are sanctioned by Britain and its allies. Britain has already sanctioned some Chinese companies accused of aiding Russia’s war in Ukraine. China has called for Britain to stop making “groundless accusations” about its involvement in Russia’s war efforts. 8) HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND GREEN ENERGY U.K. ministers are under pressure from MPs and human rights organizations to get tougher on China over reported human rights abuses in the country’s Xinjiang region — where many of the world’s solar components are sourced. In a meeting with China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang last March, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband raised the issue of forced labor in supply chains, according to a government readout of the meeting. But he also stressed the need for deeper collaboration with China as the U.K.’s lofty clean power goal looms. British academic Laura Murphy — who was researching the risk of forced labor in supply chains — had her work halted by Sheffield Hallam University amid claims of pressure from China. “I know that there are other researchers who don’t feel safe speaking out in public, who are experiencing similar things, although often more subtly,” Murphy said last year. 9) THE FUTURE OF TAIWAN China continues to assert that “Taiwan is a province of China” amid reports it is stepping up preparations for military intervention in the region. In October, the Telegraph newspaper published an op-ed from the Chinese ambassador to Britain, which said: “Taiwan has never been a country. There is but one China, and both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China.” In a sign of just how sensitive the matter is, Beijing officials reportedly threatened to cancel high-level trade talks between China and the U.K. after Alexander, then a trade minister, travelled to Taipei last June. 10) CHINA POOTLING AROUND THE ARCTIC Britain is pushing for greater European and NATO involvement in the Arctic amid concern that both China and Russia are becoming more active in the strategically important area. There is even more pressure to act, with U.S. President Donald Trump making clear his Greenland aspirations. In October, a Chinese container ship completed a pioneering journey through the Arctic to a U.K. port — halving the usual time it takes to transport electric cars and solar panels destined for Europe.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission’s vice president Henna Virkkunen sounded the alarm about Europe’s dependence on foreign technology on Tuesday, saying “it’s very clear that Europe is having our independence moment.” “During the last year, everybody has really realized how important it is that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to some very critical technologies,” she said at an event organized by POLITICO. “In these times … dependencies, they can be weaponized against us,” Virkkunen said. The intervention at the event — titled Europe’s race for digital leadership — comes at a particularly sensitive time in transatlantic relations, after U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent threats to take over Greenland forced European politicians to consider retaliation. Virkkunen declined to single out the United States as one of the partners that the EU must de-risk from. She pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as incidents that point to Europe’s “vulnerabilities.” She said the U.S. is a key partner, but also noted that “it’s very important for our competitiveness and for our security, that we have also our own capacity, that we are not dependent.” The Commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty swung behind the idea of using public contracts as a way to support the development of European technology companies and products. “We should use public procurement, of course, much more actively also to boost our own growing technologies in the European Union,” she said when asked about her stance on plans to “Buy European.” Those plans, being pushed by the French EU commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, in charge of European industy, to ensure that billions in procurement contracts flow to EU businesses, are due to be outlined in an upcoming Industrial Accelerator Act that has been delayed multiple times. “Public services, governments, municipalities, regions, also the European Commission, we are very big customers for ICT services,” Virkkunen said. “And we can also boost very much European innovations [and startups] when we are buying services.” Virkkunen is overseeing a package of legislation aimed at promoting tech sovereignty that is expected to come out this spring, including action on cloud and artificial intelligence, and microchips — industries in which Europe is behind global competitors. When asked where she saw the biggest need for Europe to break away from foreign reliance, the commissioner said that while it was difficult to pick only one area, “chips are very much a pre-condition for any other technologies.” “We are not able to design and manufacture very advanced chips. It’s very problematic for our technology customer. So I see that semiconductor chips, they are very much key for any other technologies,” she said.

LONDON — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney left Beijing and promptly declared the U.S.-led “world order” broken. Don’t expect his British counterpart to do the same. Keir Starmer will land in the Chinese capital Wednesday for the first visit by a U.K. prime minister since 2018. By meeting President Xi Jinping, he will end what he has called an “ice age” under the previous Conservative administration, and try to win deals that he can sell to voters as a boost to Britain’s sputtering economy. Starmer is one of a queue of leaders flocking to the world’s second-largest economy, including France’s Emmanuel Macron in December and Germany’s Friedrich Merz next month. Like Carney did in Davos last week, the British PM has warned the world is the most unstable it has been for a generation. Yet unlike Carney, Starmer is desperate not to paint this as a rupture from the U.S. — and to avoid the criticism Trump unleashed on Carney in recent days over his dealings with China. The U.K. PM is trying to ride three horses at once, staying friendly — or at least engaging — with Washington D.C., Brussels and Beijing.  It is his “three-body problem,” joked a senior Westminster figure who has long worked on British-China relations. POLITICO spoke to 22 current and former officials, MPs, diplomats, industry figures and China experts, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak frankly. They painted a picture of a leader walking the same tightrope he always has surrounded by grim choices — from tricky post-Brexit negotiations with the EU, to Donald Trump taking potshots at British policies and freezing talks on a U.K.-U.S. tech deal. Starmer wants his (long-planned) visit to China to secure growth, but be cautious enough not to compromise national security or enrage Trump. He appears neither to have ramped up engagement with Beijing in response to Trump, nor reduced it amid criticism of China’s espionage and human rights record. In short, he doesn’t want any drama. “Starmer is more managerial. He wants to keep the U.K.’s relationships with big powers steady,” said one person familiar with planning for the trip. “You can’t really imagine him doing a Carney or a Macron and using the trip to set out a big geopolitical vision.” An official in 10 Downing Street added: “He’s clear that it is in the U.K.’s interests to have a relationship with the world’s second biggest economy. While the U.S. is our closest ally, he rejects the suggestion that means you can’t have pragmatic dealings with China.” He will be hoping Trump — whose own China visit is planned for April — sees it that way too. BRING OUT THE CAVALRY Starmer has one word in his mind for this trip — growth, which was just 0.1 percent in the three months to September. The prime minister will be flanked by executives from City giants HSBC, Standard Chartered, Schroders and the London Stock Exchange Group; pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca; car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover; energy provider Octopus; and Brompton, the folding bicycle manufacturer. The priority in Downing Street will be bringing back “a sellable headline,” said the person familiar with trip planning quoted above. The economy is the overwhelming focus. While officials discussed trying to secure a political win, such as China lifting sanctions it imposed on British parliamentarians in 2021, one U.K. official said they now believe this to be unlikely. Between them, five people familiar with the trip’s planning predicted a large number of deals, dialogues and memorandums of understanding — but largely in areas with the fewest national security concerns. These are likely to include joint work on medical, health and life sciences, cooperation on climate science, and work to highlight Mandarin language schemes, the people said.  Officials are also working on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and visa-free travel for short stays, while firms have been pushing for more expansive banking and insurance licences for British companies operating in China. The U.K. is meanwhile likely to try to persuade Beijing to lower import tariffs on Scotch whisky, which doubled in February 2025. A former U.K. official who was involved in Britain’s last prime ministerial visit to China, by Theresa May in 2018, predicted all deals will already be “either 100 or 99 percent agreed, in the system, and No. 10 will already have a firm number in its head that it can announce.” THREADING THE NEEDLE Yet all five people agreed there is unlikely to be a deal on heavy energy infrastructure, including wind turbine technology, that could leave Britain vulnerable to China. The U.K. has still not decided whether to let Ming Yang, a Chinese firm, invest £1.5 billion in a wind farm off the coast of Scotland. And while Carney agreed to ease tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), three of the five people familiar with the trip’s planning said that any deep co-operation on EV technology is likely to be off the table. One of them predicted: “This won’t be another Canada moment. I don’t see us opening the floodgates on EVs.” Britain is trying to stick to “amber and green areas” for any deals, said the first person familiar with the planning. The second of the five people said: “I think they‘re going for the soft, slightly lovey stuff.” Britain has good reason to be reluctant, as Chinese-affiliated groups have long been accused of hacking and espionage, including against MPs and Britain’s Electoral Commission. Westminster was gripped by headlines in December about a collapsed case against two men who had been accused of spying for China. Chinese firm Huawei was banned from helping build the U.K.’s 5G phone network in 2020 after pressure from Trump. Even now, Britain’s security agencies are working on mitigations to telecommunications cables near the Tower of London. They pass close to the boundary of China’s proposed embassy, which won planning approval last week. Andrew Small, director of the Asia Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank working on foreign and security policy, said: “The current debate about how to ‘safely’ increase China’s role in U.K. green energy supplies — especially through wind power — has serious echoes of 5G all over again, and is a bigger concern on the U.S. side than the embassy decision.”  Starmer and his team also “don’t want to antagonize the Americans” ahead of Trump’s own visit in April, said the third of the five people familiar with trip planning. “They’re on eggshells … if they announce a new dialogue on United Nations policy or whatever bullshit they can come up with, any of those could be interpreted as a broadside to the Trump administration.” All these factors mean Starmer’s path to a “win” is narrow. Tahlia Peterson, a fellow working on China at Chatham House, the international affairs think tank, said: “Starmer isn’t going to ‘reset’ the relationship in one visit or unlock large-scale Chinese investment into Britain’s core infrastructure.” Small said foreign firms are being squeezed out of the Chinese market and Xi is “weaponizing” the dependency on Chinese supply chains. He added: “Beijing will likely offer extremely minor concessions in areas such as financial services, [amounting to] no more than a rounding error in economic scale.” Chancellor Rachel Reeves knows the pain of this. Britain’s top finance minister was mocked when she returned with just £600 million of agreements from her visit to China a year ago. One former Tory minister said the figure was a “deliberate insult” by China. Even once the big win is in the bag, there is the danger of it falling apart on arrival. Carney announced Canada and China would expand visa-free travel, only for Beijing’s ambassador to Ottawa to say that the move was not yet official. Despite this, businesses have been keen on Starmer’s re-engagement.  Rain Newton-Smith, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said firms are concerned about the dependence on Chinese rare earths but added: “If you map supply chains from anywhere, the idea that you can decouple from China is impossible. It’s about how that trade can be facilitated in the best way.” EMBASSY ROW Even if Starmer gets his wins, this visit will bring controversies that (critics say) show the asymmetry in Britain’s relationship with China. A tale of two embassies serves as a good metaphor.  Britain finally approved plans last week for China’s new outpost in London, despite a long row over national security. China held off formally confirming Starmer’s visit until the London embassy decision was finalized, the first person familiar with planning for the trip said. (Others point out Starmer would not want to go until the issue was resolved.) The result was a scramble in which executives were only formally invited a week before take-off. And Britain has not yet received approval to renovate its own embassy in Beijing. Officials privately refer to the building as “falling down,” while one person who has visited said construction materials were piled up against walls. It is “crumbling,” added another U.K. official: “The walls have got cracks on them, the wallpaper’s peeling off, it’s got damp patches.” British officials refused to give any impression of a “quid pro quo” for the two projects under the U.K.’s semi-judicial planning system. But that means much of Whitehall still does not know if Britain’s embassy revamp in Beijing will be approved, or held back until China’s project in London undergoes a further review in the courts. U.K. officials are privately pressing their Chinese counterparts to give the green light. One of the people keenest on a breakthrough will be Britain’s new ambassador to Beijing Peter Wilson, a career diplomat described by people who have met him as “outstanding,” “super smart” and “very friendly.”  For Wilson, hosting Starmer will be one of his trickiest jobs yet. The everyday precautions when doing business in China have made preparations for this trip more intense. Government officials and corporate executives are bringing secure devices and will have been briefed on the risk of eavesdropping and honeytraps. One member of Theresa May’s 2018 delegation to China recalled opening the door of what they thought was their vehicle, only to see several people with headsets on, listening carefully and typing. They compared it to a scene in a spy film. Activists and MPs will put Starmer under pressure to raise human rights issues — including what campaigners say is a genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province — on a trip governed by strict protocol where one stray word can derail a deal.  Pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai, who has British nationality, is facing sentencing in Hong Kong imminently for national security offenses. During the PM’s last meeting with Xi in 2024, Chinese officials bundled British journalists out of the room when he raised the case. Campaigners had thought Lai’s sentencing could take place this week. All these factors mean tension in the British state — which has faced a tussle between “securocrats” and departments pushing for growth — has been high ahead of the trip. Government comments on China are workshopped carefully before publication. Earlier this month, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told POLITICO her work on Beijing involves looking at “transnational repression” and “espionage threats.” But when Chancellor Rachel Reeves met China’s Finance Minister He Lifeng in Davos last week to tee up Starmer’s visit, the U.K. Treasury did not publicize the meeting — beyond a little-noticed photo on its Flickr account. SLOW BOAT TO CHINA Whatever the controversies, Labour’s China stance has been steadily taking shape since before Starmer took office in 2024. Labour drew inspiration from its sister party in Australia and the U.S. Democrats, both of which had regular meetings with Beijing. Party aides argued that after a brief “golden era” under Conservative PM David Cameron, Britain engaged less with China than with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The result of Labour’s thinking was the policy of “three Cs” — “challenge, compete, and cooperate.” A procession of visits to Beijing followed, most notably Reeves last year, culminating in Starmer’s trip. His National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell was involved in planning across much of 2025, even travelling to meet China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in November. Starmer teed up this week’s visit with a December speech arguing the “binary” view of China had persisted for too long. He promised to engage with Beijing carefully while taking a “more transactional approach to pretty well everything.”  The result was that this visit has long been locked in; just as Labour aides argue the London embassy decision was set in train in 2018, when the Tory government gave diplomatic consent for the site. Labour ministers “just want to normalize” the fact of dealing with China, said the senior Westminster figure quoted above. Newton-Smith added: “I think the view is that the government’s engagement with eyes wide open is the right strategy. And under the previous government, we did lose out.” But for each person who praises the re-engagement, there are others who say it has left Britain vulnerable while begging for scraps at China’s table. Hawks argue the hard details behind the “three Cs” were long nebulous, while Labour’s long-awaited “audit” of U.K.-China relations was delayed before being folded briefly into a wider security document. “Every single bad decision now can be traced back to the first six months,” argued the third person familiar with planning quoted above. “They were absolutely ill-prepared and made a series of decisions that have boxed them into a corner.” They added: “The government lacks the killer instinct to deal with China. It’s not in their DNA.” Luke de Pulford, a human rights campaigner and director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, argued the Tories had engaged with China — Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited in 2023 — and Labour was simply going much further. “China is pursuing an enterprise to reshape the global order in its own image, and to that end, to change our institutions and way of life to the extent that they’re an obstacle to it,” he said. “That’s what they’re up to — and we keep falling for it.” END OF THE OLD ORDER? His language may be less dramatic, but Starmer’s visit to China does have some parallels with Canada. Carney’s trip was the first by a Canadian PM since 2017, and he and Xi agreed a “new strategic partnership.” Later at Davos, the Canadian PM talked of “the end of a pleasant fiction” and warned multilateral institutions such as the United Nations are under threat. One British industry figure who attended Davos said of Carney’s speech: “It was great. Everyone was talking about it. Someone said to me that was the best and most poignant speech they’d ever seen at the World Economic Forum. That may be a little overblown, but I guess most of the speeches at the WEF are quite dull.” The language used by Starmer, a former human rights lawyer devoted to multilateralism, has not been totally dissimilar. Britain could no longer “look only to international institutions to uphold our values and interests,” he said in December. “We must do it ourselves through deals and alliances.” But while some in the U.K. government privately agree with Carney’s point, the real difference is the two men’s approach to Trump. Starmer will temper his messaging carefully to avoid upsetting either his Chinese hosts or the U.S., even as Trump throws semi-regular rocks at Britain. To Peterson, this is unavoidable. “China, the U.S. and the EU are likely to continue to dominate global economic growth for the foreseeable future,” she said. “Starmer’s choice is not whether to engage, but how.” Esther Webber contributed reporting.

LONDON — British ministers have been laying the ground for Keir Starmer’s handshake with Xi Jinping in Beijing this week ever since Labour came to power. In a series of behind-closed-door speeches in China and London, obtained by POLITICO, ministers have sought to persuade Chinese and British officials, academics and businesses that rebuilding the trade and investment relationship is essential — even as economic security threats loom. After a “Golden Era” in relations trumpeted by Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, Britain’s once-close ties to the Asian superpower began to unravel in the late 2010s. By 2019, Boris Johnson had frozen trade and investment talks after a Beijing-led crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy movement. At Donald Trump’s insistence, Britain stripped Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from its telecoms infrastructure over security concerns. Starmer — who is expected to meet Xi on a high-stakes trip to Beijing this week — set out to revive an economic relationship that had hit the rocks. The extent of the reset undertaken by the PM’s cabinet is revealed in the series of speeches by ministers instrumental to his China policy over the past year, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, and former Indo-Pacific, investment, city and trade ministers. Months before security officials completed an audit of Britain’s exposure to Chinese interference last June, ministers were pushing for closer collaboration between the two nations on energy and financial systems, and the eight sectors of Labour’s industrial strategy. “Six of those eight sectors have national security implications,” said a senior industry representative, granted anonymity to speak freely about their interactions with government. “When you speak to [the trade department] they frame China as an opportunity. When you speak to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, it’s a national security risk.”  While Starmer’s reset with China isn’t misguided, “I think we’ve got to be much more hard headed about where we permit Chinese investment into the economy in the future,” said Labour MP Liam Byrne, chair of the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee. Lawmakers on his committee are “just not convinced that the investment strategy that is unfolding between the U.K. and China is strong enough for the future and increased coercion risks,” he said. As Trump’s tariffs bite, Beijing’s trade surplus is booming and “we’ve got to be realistic that China is likely to double down on its Made in China approach and target its export surplus at the U.K.,” Byrne said. China is the U.K.’s fifth-largest trade partner, and data to June of last year show U.K. exports to China dropping 10.4 percent year-on-year while imports rose 4.3 percent. “That’s got the real potential to flood our markets with goods that are full of Chinese subsidies, but it’s also got the potential to imperil key sectors of our economy, in particular the energy system,” Byrne warned. A U.K. government spokesperson said: “Since the election, the Government has been consistently transparent about our approach to China – which we are clear will be grounded in strength, clarity and sober realism. “We will cooperate where we can and challenge where we must, never compromising on our national security. We reject the old ‘hot and cold’ diplomacy that failed to protect our interests or support our growth.” While Zheng Zeguang’s speech was released online, the Foreign Office refused to provide Catherine West’s own address when requested at the time. | Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images CATHERINE WEST, INDO-PACIFIC MINISTER, SEPTEMBER 2024 Starmer’s ministers began resetting relations in earnest on the evening of Sept. 25, 2024 at the luxury Peninsula Hotel in London’s Belgravia, where rooms go for £800 a night. Some 400 guests, including a combination of businesses, British government and Chinese embassy officials, gathered to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China — a milestone for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. “I am honored to be invited to join your celebration this evening,” then Indo-Pacific Minister Catherine West told the room, kicking off her keynote following a speech by China’s ambassador to the U.K., Zheng Zeguang.  “Over the last 75 years, China’s growth has been exponential; in fields like infrastructure, technology and innovation which have reverberated across the globe,” West said, according to a Foreign Office briefing containing the speech obtained through freedom of information law. “Both our countries have seen the benefits of deepening our trade and economic ties.”  While London and Beijing won’t always see eye-to-eye, “the U.K. will cooperate with China where we can. We recognise we will also compete in other areas — and challenge where we need to,” West told the room, including 10 journalists from Chinese media, including Xinhua, CGTN and China Daily. While Zheng’s speech was released online, the Foreign Office refused to provide West’s own address when requested at the time. Freedom of information officers later provided a redacted briefing “to protect information that would be likely to prejudice relations.” DAVID LAMMY, FOREIGN SECRETARY, OCTOBER 2024 As foreign secretary, David Lammy made his first official overseas visit in the job with a two-day trip to Beijing and Shanghai. He met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Oct. 18, a few weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump’s re-election. Britain and China’s top diplomats discussed climate change, trade and global foreign policy challenges. “I met with Director Wang Yi yesterday and raised market access issues with him directly,” Lammy told a roundtable of British businesses at Shanghai’s Regent On The Bund hotel the following morning, noting that he hoped greater dialogue between the two nations would break down trade barriers. “At the same time, I remain committed to protecting the U.K.’s national security,” Lammy said. “In most sectors of the economy, China brings opportunities through trade and investment, and this is where continued collaboration is of great importance to me,” he told firms. Freedom of information officers redacted portions of Lammy’s speech so it wouldn’t “prejudice relations” with China.  Later that evening, the then-foreign secretary gave a speech at the Jean Nouvel-designed Pudong Museum of Art to 200 business, education, arts and culture representatives. China is “the world’s biggest emitter” of CO2, Lammy told them in his prepared remarks obtained by freedom of information law. “But also the world’s biggest producer of renewable energy. This is a prime example of why I was keen to visit China this week. And why this government is committed to a long-term, strategic approach to relations.” Shanghai continues “to play a key role in trade and investment links with the rest of the world as well,” he said, pointing to the “single biggest” ever British investment in China: INEOS Group’s $800 million plastics plant in Zhejiang. “We welcome Chinese investment for clear mutual benefit the other way too,” Lammy said. “This is particularly the case in clean energy, where we are both already offshore wind powerhouses and the costs of rolling out more clean energy are falling rapidly.” “We welcome Chinese investment for clear mutual benefit the other way too,” David Lammy said. | Adam Vaughan/EPA POPPY GUSTAFSSON, INVESTMENT MINISTER, NOVEMBER 2024 Just days after Starmer and President Xi met for the first time at the G20 that November, Poppy Gustafsson, then the British investment minister, told a U.K.-China trade event at a luxury hotel on Mayfair’s Park Lane that “we want to open the door to more investment in our banking and insurance industries.” The event, co-hosted by the Bank of China UK and attended by Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang and 400 guests, including the U.K. heads of several major China business and financial institutions, is considered the “main forum for U.K.-China business discussion,” according to a briefing package prepared for Gustafsson. “We want to see more green initiatives like Red Rock Renewables who are unlocking hundreds of megawatts in new capacity at wind farms off the coast of Scotland — boosting this Government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower by 2030,” Gustafsson told attendees, pointing to the project owned by China’s State Development and Investment Group. The number one objective for her speech, officials instructed the minister, was to “affirm the importance of engaging with China on trade and investment and cooperating on shared multilateral interests.” And she was told to “welcome Chinese investment which supports U.K. growth and the domestic industry through increased exports and wider investment across the economy and in the Industrial Strategy priority sectors.” The Chinese government published a readout of Gustafsson and Zheng’s remarks. RACHEL REEVES, CHANCELLOR, JANUARY 2025 By Jan. 11 last year, Chancellor Rachel Reeves was in Beijing with British financial and professional services giants like Abrdn, Standard Chartered, KPMG, the London Stock Exchange, Barclays and Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey in tow. She was there to meet with China’s Vice-Premier He Lifeng to reopen one of the key financial and investment talks with Beijing Boris Johnson froze in 2019. Before Reeves and He sat down for the China-U.K. Economic and Financial Dialogue, Britain’s chancellor delivered an address alongside the vice-premier to kick off a parallel summit for British and Chinese financial services firms, according to an agenda for the summit shared with POLITICO. Reeves was also due to attend a dinner the evening of the EFD and then joined a business delegation travelling to Shanghai where she held a series of roundtables. Releasing any of her remarks from these events through freedom of information law “would be likely to prejudice” relations with China, the Treasury said. “It is crucial that HM Treasury does not compromise the U.K.’s interests in China.” Reeves’ visit to China paved the way for the revival of a long-dormant series of high-level talks to line up trade and investment wins, including the China-U.K. Energy Dialogue in March and U.K.-China Joint Economic and Trade Commission (JETCO) last September. EMMA REYNOLDS, CITY MINISTER, MARCH 2025 “Growth is the U.K. government’s number one mission. It is the foundation of everything else we hope to achieve in the years ahead. We recognise that China will play a very important part in this,” Starmer’s then-City Minister Emma Reynolds told the closed-door U.K.-China Business Forum in central London early last March. Reeves’ restart of trade and investment talks “agreed a series of commitments that will deliver £600 million for British businesses,” Reynolds told the gathering, which included Chinese electric vehicle firm BYD, HSBC, Standard Chartered, KPMG and others. This would be achieved by “enhancing links between our financial markets,” she said. “As the world’s most connected international financial center and home to world-leading financial services firms, the City of London is the gateway of choice for Chinese financial institutions looking to expand their global reach,” Reynolds said. Ed Miliband traveled to Beijing in mid-March for the first China-U.K. Energy Dialogue since 2019. | Tolga Akmen/EPA ED MILIBAND, ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE SECRETARY, MARCH 2025 With Starmer’s Chinese reset in full swing, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband traveled to Beijing in mid-March for the first China-U.K. Energy Dialogue since 2019. Britain’s energy chief wouldn’t gloss over reports of human rights violations in China’s solar supply chain — on which the U.K. is deeply reliant for delivering its lofty renewables goals — when he met with China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, a British government official said at the time. “We maybe agree to disagree on some things,” they said. But the U.K. faces “a clean energy imperative,” Miliband told students and professors during a lecture at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University, which counts Xi Jinping and former Chinese President Hu Jintao as alumni. “The demands of energy security, affordability and sustainability now all point in the same direction: investing in clean energy at speed and at scale,” Miliband said, stressing the need for deeper U.K.-China collaboration as the U.K. government reaches towards “delivering a clean power system by 2030.”  “In the eight months since our government came to office we have been speeding ahead on offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen and [Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage],” Britain’s energy chief said. “Renewables are now the cheapest form of power to build and operate — and of course, much of this reflects technological developments driven by what is happening here in China.”  “The U.K. and China share a recognition of the urgency of acting on the climate crisis in our own countries and accelerating this transition around the world — and we must work together to do so,” Miliband said, in his remarks obtained through freedom of information law. DOUGLAS ALEXANDER, ECONOMIC SECURITY MINISTER, APRIL 2025 During a trip to China in April last year, then-Trade Minister Douglas Alexander met his counterpart to prepare to relaunch key trade and investment talks. The trip wasn’t publicized by the U.K. side. According to a Chinese government readout, the China-UK Joint Economic and Trade Commission would promote “cooperation in trade and investment, and industrial and supply chains” between Britain’s trade secretary and his Chinese equivalent. After meeting Vice Minister and Deputy China International Trade Representative Ling Ji, Minister Alexander gave a speech at China’s largest consumer goods expo near the country’s southernmost point on the island province of Hainan. Alexander extended his “sincere thanks” to China’s Ministry of Commerce and the Hainan Provincial Government “for inviting the U.K. to be the country of honour at this year’s expo.” “We must speak often and candidly about areas of cooperation and, yes, of contention too, where there are issues on which we disagree,” the trade policy and economic security minister said, according to a redacted copy of his speech obtained under freedom of information law. “We are seeing joint ventures and collaboration between Chinese and U.K. firms on a whole host of different areas … in renewable energy, in consumer goods, and in banking and finance,” Alexander later told some of the 27 globally renowned British retailers, including Wedgwood, in another speech during the U.K. pavilion opening ceremony. “We are optimistic about the potential for deeper trade and investment cooperation — about the benefits this will bring to the businesses showcasing here, and those operating throughout China’s expansive market.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech went viral, but it has sparked a predictably angry reaction from the Trump White House that could torpedo trade talks already on thin ice. Carney’s call to arms to smaller countries to band together against the economic coercion of “great powers” sparked criticism from Donald Trump and his inner circle — and it is renewing warnings on both sides of the border that it could undermine Ottawa as it faces a review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the continental trade deal worth C$1.3 trillion in two-way merchandise trade. Goldy Hyder, the president of the lobby group for Canada’s top CEOs, spent several days in Washington this week where he said he got an earful from U.S. lawmakers and business leaders. “Obviously, the response from the Americans suggests that some harm has been done. I don’t believe it to have been significant or fatal, but I do think we need to make sure we’re sending the signals that we care about this agreement,” Hyder, the president of the Business Council of Canada, told POLITICO on Friday. The standing ovation and breathless praise Carney initially received in Davos gave way to some hand-wringing Friday at the World Economic Forum and beyond. “I’m not exactly on the same page as Mark,” European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said in a panel, a departure from earlier in the week when she walked out of a dinner with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during an anti-Europe speech. “We should be talking about alternatives,” she said. “We should be identifying, much more so than we have probably in the past, the weaknesses, the sore points, the dependencies, the autonomy.” Trump and Carney, as well as their top Cabinet members, are exchanging blows against the backdrop of the looming mandatory six-year review of the USMCA, a process that could lead to renewal, modifications or the potential demise of a pact Trump once called the biggest and most important deal in U.S. history. Trump fired the first shot back at Carney’s speech during his own Davos address the following day, telling the world: “Canada lives because of the United States.” He repeated past gripes that Canada “gets a lot of freebies” from the U.S. and it “should be grateful.” Carney counterpunched the next day at his Quebec City Cabinet retreat, making a last-minute edit to a speech on his domestic ambitions. “Canada doesn’t live because of the United States,” he said. “Canada thrives because we are Canadian.” Hours later, Trump revoked Canada’s invitation to participate in his Gaza “Board of Peace” initiative. Trump didn’t offer a specific reason. Then on Friday, Trump trolled Canada in a Truth Social post that included a dig about “doing business with China.” Louise Blais, a former Canadian deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said the post-Davos bickering between Trump and Carney evokes the hostility that erupted between Trump and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2018 at the G7 Canada hosted, and could be damaging to the USMCA review. “Canada thinks that we’re pushing back on the Americans blackmailing us and holding us to account, but to the White House mind, it looks as if we are ungrateful,” Blais told POLITICO from Mexico on Friday, where she was attending meetings on the USMCA. She now works as a senior adviser for a U.S. consultancy and Hyder’s council. “The damage could be eight out of 10, but it’s really totally up to the Americans. They are going to decide whether or not they push back. We certainly have given them a lot of ammunition to do so,” she added. Trump’s top political lieutenants also piled on with insults and sideswipes of their own. In an interview with Bloomberg from Davos, Lutnick called Carney “arrogant” and said his decision to strike new agreements with China will work against Canada in this year’s review of USMCA. “This is the silliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lutnick said of the idea that China will then increase imports from Canada. “Give me a break — they have the second-best deal in the world. And all we got to do is listen to this guy whine and complain.” Lutnick said Mexico has the best deal, followed by Canada because 85 percent of its exports flow tariff-free to the U.S. under USMCA. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Carney of “value signaling.” “If he believes what’s best for Canada is to make speeches like that, which I don’t think is very helpful, then he should make speeches like that,” Bessent told POLITICO’s Dasha Burns. Bessent added: “In the context of the United States, I’ll point out the Canadian economy is smaller than the economy of Texas.” Bessent noted in the interview that Trump stood up to China’s manipulation of the rare earths market. “Prime Minister Carney should say ‘thank you,’ rather than giving this value-signaling speech,” Bessent said. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also questioned the wisdom of Carney’s dealmaking with China in light of the upcoming USMCA review and has been speculating the U.S. could negotiate separate deals with Canada and Mexico. As Carney returned from Europe for a Cabinet meeting in Quebec City, his leading lieutenants remained defiant. “There are always going to be stressful times, and let’s not sugarcoat it. The prime minister never does. It’s a difficult world,” Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon told reporters Friday morning. When asked about the U.S. criticism, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Carney was simply saying “a lot of things that people thought. And he had the courage to say it loud.” Greenland’s Energy and Industry Minister Naaja Nathanielsen told POLITICO that Carney’s speech was “brilliant.” “Right now, we’re still figuring out what is the American intentions,” she said from Davos. “I thought [it] was the most clear-eyed speech I’ve heard in a long time.” But Hyder and Blais say Carney’s next priority must be finding a path back to bargaining with Trump and his team, and to end the bickering in interest of preserving USMCA. Talks were expected to resume this month after Trump abruptly halted them in October, apparently angry the Ontario government used Ronald Reagan’s voice in an anti-tariff commercial. Hyder said he got a lengthy briefing from senior officials in the Office of the United States Trade Representative, met one Democrat and seven Republican lawmakers and consulted his U.S. counterparts at the Business Roundtable, which represents the leaders of the largest American companies. During his 90 minutes at USTR, Hyder said he was told Mexico was making “great progress” in dealing with trade irritants. “They have the lowest tariff rate in the world as a result of it, lower than ours,” said Hyder. “We’re now not engaged, we’re not conversing, and we’re waiting for the Americans to call us. Why would they call us to lower the tariffs that they’re imposing on us? We need to lean in.” Hyder said he believes Carney has convinced himself Trump has no intention of renewing USMCA, and that he needs to disabuse himself of that “self-fulfilling prophecy.” “It’s not too late to recognize the opportunity to still get this agreement across the finish line, and we need to be at the table to do that,” he said. Carney signaled he was irritated when he brushed off what he called a “boring question” from a reporter about how talks with Trump were going as he departed the Cabinet retreat this week. Blais said that Carney needs the USCMA if he wants to achieve his goal of increasing exports to other countries. “The strength of our economy and our ability to diversify is very much anchored in our North American competitiveness … because we’re seen to have access to the U.S. market that has supply chains that are healthy,” she said. “The more we say that there’s a rupture with that, the less attractive we become as a country to invest. “That’s the worry.” Jakob Weizman and Marianne Gros contributed to this report from Brussels. Mickey Djuric reported from Quebec City.

BRUSSELS — Greenland’s mining minister has rejected U.S. attempts to carve up her island’s mineral resources, saying no external power should decide the fate of the Arctic territory’s vast natural wealth. “Everything is on the table except [our] sovereignty,” Mineral Resources Minister Naaja Nathanielsen told POLITICO in an interview, two days after U.S. President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte held closed-door talks that the U.S. president claimed included a deal on the island’s resources. Nathanielsen challenged their right to do this, saying her country was “not going to accept our future development of our mineral sector to be decided outside Greenland.” Trump started the week threatening to impose massive tariffs on EU countries if they didn’t hand over Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, to the U.S., but backed down Wednesday after saying he had reached a “framework for a future deal” with Rutte.   But if that deal includes allowing any country other than Greenland to control its minerals, it’s a “no” from Nuuk, the minister said. The Arctic island is home to enough of some kinds of rare earth elements to cater to a quarter of the world’s demand, along with vast amounts of oil, gas, gold and clean energy metals — but has extracted almost none of them.  A Greenland flag flies in Nuuk, Greenland. | Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images Although the exact details of the framework remain unclear, a European official told POLITICO on Thursday it could include an oversight board to supervise the island’s minerals.   Nathanielsen rejected that possibility. “That would amount to giving up sovereignty, that is our jurisdiction, what happens with our minerals,” she said, suggesting the possibility of resolving the issue over Greenland’s resources through multilateral talks.  “I’m not saying there is no deal to be had,” said the Greenlandic politician, adding that the government had “no objections to building up [NATO] capacity in Greenland or monitoring of any kind” and is also open to developing a 2019 mining cooperation agreement with the U.S. “But we cannot begin to trade minerals for sovereignty,” she said.   After meeting Greenland’s premier Jens Frederik Nielsen in Nuuk on Friday to talk about the potential Trump deal, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that while the situation remains serious, “we have a path that we are in the process of trying with the Americans.”  Frederiksen met with Rutte in Brussels earlier Friday to discuss the details of the NATO chief’s talks with Trump. Nielsen said Thursday he was still in the dark about the details of the agreement. Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Nuuk, Jan. 23, 2026. | Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images ALLIES, NOT FRIENDS  The European Union has gone into a panic mode to build a raw materials supply chain virtually from scratch, as global supply chains for materials vital to clean energy, tech and military equipment become less certain amid fracturing global alliances. Greenland is seen as a potential solution, and the EU signed a strategic partnership with it on minerals in 2023. Nathanielsen thinks that the U.S. has shown more “quickness” in building mineral supply chains due to Trump’s flurry of trade deals with dozens of countries worldwide and aligning national legislation. The EU “has been a bit slower to do that, because it’s so much more difficult,” said the minister.   Now, Greenland is cautiously reviewing the risk levels that the U.S. presents after Trump seemed to exclude the possibility of military intervention on the island.  “People are still on edge, but we have taken steps down the conflict ladder,” said Nathanielsen. But it’s become clear that, “the U.S. is an ally, not necessarily a friend right now,” she added.  This story has been updated.

China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday said a new European Commission proposal to restrict high-risk tech vendors from critical supply chains amounted to “blatant protectionism,” warning European officials that Beijing will take “necessary measures” to protect Chinese firms. Beijing has “serious concerns” over the bill, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters, according to state news agencies’ reports. “Using non-technical standards to forcibly restrict or even prohibit companies from participating in the market, without any factual evidence, seriously violates market principles and fair competition rules,” Guo said. The European Commission on Tuesday unveiled its proposal to revamp the bloc’s Cybersecurity Act. The bill seeks to crack down on risky technology vendors in critical supply chains ranging across energy, transport, health care and other sectors. Though the legislation itself does not name any specific countries or companies, it is widely seen as being targeted at China. 5G suppliers Huawei and ZTE are in the EU’s immediate crosshairs, while other Chinese vendors are expected to be hit at a later stage. European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier responded to the Chinese foreign ministry, saying Europe has allowed high-risk vendors from outside the EU in strategic sectors for “far too long.” “We are indeed radically changing this. Because we cannot be naive anymore,” Regnier said in a statement. The exclusion of high-risk suppliers will always be based on “strong risk assessments” and in coordination with EU member countries, he said. China “urges the EU to avoid going further down the wrong path of protectionism,” the Chinese foreign ministry’s Guo told reporters. He added the EU bill would “not only fail to achieve so-called security but will also incur huge costs,” saying some restrictions on using Huawei had already “caused enormous economic losses” in Europe in past years. European telecom operators warned Tuesday that the law would impose multi-billion euro costs on the industry if restrictions on using Huawei and ZTE were to become mandatory across Europe. A Huawei spokesperson said in a statement that laws to block suppliers based on their country of origin violate the EU’s “basic legal principles of fairness, non-discrimination, and proportionality,” as well as its World Trade Organization obligations. The company “reserve[s] all rights to safeguard our legitimate interests,” the spokesperson said. ZTE did not respond to requests for comment on the EU’s plans.

STRASBOURG — Donald Trump’s threats to slap tariffs on European countries that disagree with him on Greenland are “simply wrong,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday morning. Speaking to MEPs in Strasbourg, von der Leyen said the EU is aligned and “working together” with the U.S on the need to ensure security in the Arctic, and Brussels is planning “a massive European investment surge in Greenland” to support the local economy and boost its infrastructure.  “This is why the proposed additional tariffs are simply wrong,” von der Leyen said. She added that the EU wants to stop the crisis escalating as “a dangerous downward spiral between allies” would only “embolden the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of our strategic landscape.” Von der Leyen’s comments come as EU leaders scramble to deal with Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and react to his announcement of 10 percent tariffs on goods from countries that sent troops to Nuuk.  “Europe prefers dialogue and solutions, but we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency and determination,” she said.  The Commission president also said the EU needs to diversify its trade relationships and “reduce our dependencies.” The EU is negotiating trade deals with India and other countries that “will open massive opportunities for our businesses.” ”Our supply chains and derisking goals depend on it,” she added, hinting at the bloc’s highly interlinked trade connections with the U.S. The European Union is on track to get nearly half of its gas from the United States by the end of the decade, creating a major strategic vulnerability for the bloc as relations with Washington hit an all-time low, as POLITICO reported earlier this week.  Just a few hours before lawmakers vote on whether to send the Mercosur trade deal for legal review, which could stall the adoption process by up to two years, von der Leyen said the deal with the South American bloc will be beneficial for the dairy, wine, spirits and oil sectors, while the Commission has secured “strong” safeguards for other sensitive agri-food sectors.   “This is a deal that will bring benefits across our economy, across every member state. And it can shield Europe from the risks it faces, ensuring our prosperity and our security at the same time,” she said.