The Pentagon's AI Price-Setting Plan for Critical Minerals Faces a Skeptical World

The Trump administration is weaponizing a Pentagon AI program to rewrite the rules of the global critical minerals trade. As the G7 summit opens in Évian-les-Bains, France, its centerpiece proposal—using DARPA's Open Price Exploration for National Security (OPEN) algorithm to set reference prices for metals like gallium and germanium—is running into a wall of diplomatic skepticism, industry division, and warnings from the United Nations about trade fragmentation and World Trade Organization (WTO) conflicts.

At its core, the plan is a direct shot at China's dominance over the global supply of materials essential for everything from semiconductors to electric vehicles. China mines roughly 60% and processes about 90% of the world's critical minerals , giving it enormous leverage. By creating an AI-backed pricing mechanism that strips out what Washington views as state-subsidized market manipulation, the U.S. hopes to build a parallel Western trading bloc that operates on more favorable terms. But as the plan moves from concept to contentious summit agenda, the practical obstacles are mounting.

How DARPA's OPEN AI Would Set Mineral Prices

Launched in 2023, DARPA's OPEN program was designed to tackle a fundamental problem in commodity markets: many critical minerals are thinly traded or scarcely traded at all, making their real-world prices foggy and vulnerable to manipulation . The AI model calculates a "structural price" by analyzing production costs, labor, supply-chain logistics, and other fundamental inputs to determine what a metal should cost if market-distorting practices were removed .

Vice President JD Vance formally proposed that the U.S. and more than 50 partner countries adopt these AI-generated reference prices at each stage of processing—from raw ore to refined material—backed by "adjustable tariffs to maintain the integrity of pricing" . The initiative initially focuses on four minerals: germanium, gallium, antimony, and tungsten , with plans to expand the model to a broader range of commodities over time.

The administration has already signed 11 new bilateral critical minerals frameworks or memoranda of understanding with countries including Argentina, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom, and reached completion of negotiations with 17 other nations . The OPEN program itself is being transferred from the Pentagon to the State Department and the non-profit Critical Minerals Forum to underpin a would-be Western metals trading bloc .

G7 Allies Favor Multilateralism Over Bilateral Speed

Despite the administration's momentum, the plan is colliding with deep-seated resistance from America's closest partners. Reporting from the G7 gathering in Évian-les-Bains reveals that negotiations have stumbled over the plan's cost, governance structure, and the fear that government-imposed reference prices could distort markets rather than stabilize them .

Several key allies are actively exploring alternatives. Japan, France, and Canada are developing a separate approach that includes a Canada-backed "buyers' club," import quotas on certain rare earths, and subsidies for mining companies to diversify supply chains . Meanwhile, G7 nations are negotiating the creation of a permanent secretariat to manage critical minerals policy beyond the bloc's rotating annual leadership, which would embed coordination in a multilateral institution rather than a series of bilateral U.S. deals .

This tension reflects a fundamental philosophical divide. The Trump administration has prioritized bilateral, commercially driven diplomacy, favoring one-on-one financing commitments over multilateral forums like the Minerals Security Partnership . In contrast, the G7—led by France, which currently holds the presidency—has advanced the 2025 G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan, a framework focused on standards-based markets, traceability requirements, mobilization of capital through multilateral development banks, and broad supply-chain diversification . The Action Plan emphasizes collaborative institution-building rather than the fast, tariff-backed price controls Washington is pushing.

G7 members have reportedly "cooled on the idea of the bloc relying on a price scheme derived from a Pentagon AI program" during private negotiations with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer .

The Mining Industry Is Split Down the Middle

The mining sector itself is far from unified behind the plan. The industry divide exposes a fundamental disagreement over how government should support critical mineral production .

The National Mining Association (NMA) has consistently urged Washington to pursue market-friendly incentives instead of government-administered price-setting. In testimony and public comments, the NMA has outlined its preferred toolkit: streamlined permitting reform that cuts the decade-plus timelines currently required for new mines, expansion of investment tax credits like the 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit, direct offtake support, and regulatory clarity—not price floors or reference prices . The NMA warns that government price intervention could deter private capital, distort supply-and-demand signals, and create the very regulatory uncertainty that discourages the long-term investments needed to build new mines.

Others in the industry see the proposal differently. For miners and processors battered by volatile Chinese-dominated markets, guaranteed reference prices act as a hedge. When China can flood the market with subsidized, artificially cheap refined minerals, Western producers struggle to compete on price even when their underlying costs are efficient. An AI-backed "structural price" would, in theory, provide the predictability needed to finance expensive extraction and processing projects.

The Trump administration has precedent for direct intervention. In 2025, the Pentagon invested $400 million in preferred shares of MP Materials, the largest rare earth miner in the U.S., acquiring a 15% equity stake while also providing a $150 million loan and coordinating roughly $1 billion in private financing and a guaranteed price floor . That deal demonstrated Washington's willingness to back specific companies and projects directly. However, the administration has since signaled it is moving away from broad price floors for future agreements after acknowledging insufficient congressional funding and the complexity of establishing market prices across dozens of minerals .

UNCTAD Warns of Fragmentation and WTO Risks

In a June 2026 Global Trade Update, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) fired a warning shot at the U.S. bilateral strategy . The agency flagged the more than 70 partnership agreements currently in place to secure supply chains for critical energy transition minerals (CETMs) like nickel, copper, and rare earths, many of them U.S.-led .

UNCTAD's core concern is that exclusive, preferential trading blocs and government-set pricing mechanisms risk splitting global mineral markets into rival Western and Chinese-led spheres. This fragmentation would raise costs, reduce market liquidity, and accelerate the reconfiguration of global trade into competing geopolitical blocs. Since 2020, approximately 18,000 new discriminatory trade measures have been introduced globally, and UNCTAD warns that U.S.-led mineral partnerships could accelerate this spiral .

A second major concern centers on the WTO. Preferential reference prices and adjustable tariffs tied to the OPEN model could violate two foundational principles of the multilateral trading system: most-favored-nation treatment, which requires equal access for all WTO members, and non-discrimination rules . U.S.-led partnerships favor a market-oriented approach that coordinates supply-chain security through preferential trade arrangements and proposed price-floor frameworks. Because these policies extend beyond traditional trade measures, UNCTAD questions their consistency with WTO obligations . If challenged, the plan could trigger formal dispute cases just as the global trading system is already under historic strain.

UNCTAD is not opposing Western coordination per se. The agency has called for a new generation of partnerships that help developing countries expand domestic refining and processing, connect mining to broader economic sectors, and ensure the green energy transition benefits the global South . The warning is about design and governance: whether these partnerships align with multilateral rules or further deepen the fragmentation that already threatens global trade.

What Happens Next

As G7 leaders gather in Évian-les-Bains from June 15 to 17, the OPEN program sits at the center of an unresolved geopolitical puzzle. The Trump administration has the technology, the initial bilateral deals, and the strategic rationale to push forward. It does not have the consensus—from allies, from the mining industry, or from the multilateral institutions whose rules govern global trade.

If the G7 moves toward its own secretariat-based coordinating mechanism, the U.S. could find itself running a parallel bilateral track that lacks the critical mass to meaningfully compete with China's scale. If Washington insists on the AI price-setting model over allied objections, it risks both diplomatic rifts and WTO litigation. If it backs down, it loses the signature initiative designed to counter China's dominance in the one commodity sector most entangled with national security and the energy transition.

The stakes go far beyond any single summit. The outcome will shape whether the West builds a unified trading architecture for the minerals powering the 21st-century economy, or whether it splinters into competing blocs whose disputes play straight into China's hands.