Comments to USTR: 35+ Orgs Demand Justice in Critical Minerals Deals
WASHINGTON, D.C — Today, Public Citizen submitted comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) with 35 civil society, environmental, faith, and human rights organizations in response to their request for input on how to structure a plurilateral critical minerals deal and how to design and enforce a pricing mechanism to create and maintain a market for minerals. The comments emphasize the need for high environmental, human rights, and labor standards as well as public and congressional input.
The groups emphasized that their recommendations are especially urgent as the texts of various critical minerals agreements begin to surface. Early details raise concerns that these negotiations could lock in an extractive, anti-development model that undermines labor rights, environmental protections, and sovereignty in mineral-producing countries.
Terms like the “right of first refusal” cited in the DRC agreement and the ban on mineral export restrictions cited in the Indonesia agreement specifically raise alarms. Civil society groups warn that provisions like these could lock mineral-producing countries into exporting raw materials while limiting their ability to pursue domestic processing and other development strategies that allow them to move up the value chain.
The coalition’s submission urges the USTR to ensure that any plurilateral critical minerals framework supports equitable development and a just energy transition.
Specifically, the groups call for:
- Strong, binding labor, environmental, human, and indigenous rights standards with swift and certain enforcement;
- Policies that advance sustainable development, job creation, and minerals circularity in both the U.S and partner countries; and
- A transparent process with full congressional review and approval, as required by law.
Quotes from signatory organizations:
“The Trump administration’s depravity truly knows no bounds,” said Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at Public Citizen. “As USTR seeks input on minerals dealmaking, the New York Times reported this week that the State Department is apparently threatening to withhold life-saving HIV treatments to pressure Zambia into a deal over its critical minerals agreements. We demand a stop to exploitative and secretive dealmaking, and call for fair partnerships that uphold high-road standards for workers, affected communities, and the environment.”
“These critical minerals deals throw standards that protect people, the environment, or even U.S. competitiveness to the wayside in the name of corporate profits and ugly mercantilism. Demanding the best from—and guaranteeing agency of—all parties is the way to achieve manufacturing excellence and stability,” said Harry Manin, Sierra Club Industrial Transformation Campaign Lead. “These deals represent a supercharged regression to the very ‘race to the bottom’ strategy that this Administration claims to abhor.
“Congolese lawyers and civil society leaders have challenged the U.S.-DRC agreement in Congo’s Constitutional Court on grounds that the deal erodes Congo’s sovereignty and violates the country’s Constitution,” said Maurice Carney, Friends of the Congo. “Such strong local push-back should raise concerns about the nature of these deals and their impact on local communities.”
“We don’t need more rigged, backroom trade deals,” said Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Trade Justice Education Fund. “Without binding provisions that support quality job creation and environmental protection for communities at home and abroad, this pact is likely to funnel taxpayer dollars to dirty, exploitative mining projects around the world that benefit Big Tech billionaires and other corporate special interests at the expense of everyone else.”
”Trade agreements and treaties have a massive effect on the people and ecosystems near sites of extraction—in this case, so-called critical mineral deposits. In order to uphold the sovereignty of trade partners and minimize environmental harm, trade agreements about these minerals should be carefully developed in consultation with civil society organizations and affected communities. But none of this administration’s so-called agreements do that. Instead, the administration has consistently made unreasonable demands of mineral-rich countries in order to benefit corporate interests, especially friends of the administration,” said Raquel Dominguez, Circular Economy Policy Advocate, Earthworks
Additional resources:
- Trade and Critical Minerals: The Deadly Cost of Cobalt Mining in the Congo
- Sánchez and 50+ Reps Call for Transparency in Congo Critical Minerals Agreement
- The Indonesia-U.S. Trade Agreement: A Bad Deal for Climate, Environment, and Rights