Bota Posted on 2026-02-25 09:42:00

Trade bloc's mineral pricing AI program - Trump administration's project to regulate the market

From Dorian Koça

Trade bloc's mineral pricing AI program - Trump administration's

The Trump administration plans to use an artificial intelligence program created by the Pentagon to help set benchmark prices for critical minerals as it works to build a global metals trading zone.

Vice President JD Vance earlier this month proposed that the US and more than 50 other countries set "reference prices for critical minerals at every stage of production" that would be supported by "adjustable tariffs to maintain price integrity."

These reference prices will be determined by the Department of Defense's Open National Security Price Exploration (OPEN) IA metals program.

The move sheds light on how the administration aims to shape market prices, even as artificial intelligence technology has faced skepticism about whether it can reorganize the way critical minerals are bought and sold.

The OPEN program was launched in 2023 by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) with the aim of calculating the price of a metal when labor, processing and other costs are taken into account and when the alleged manipulation of the Chinese market is excluded.

Trump officials are initially focusing OPEN's artificial intelligence pricing model on at least four critical minerals, including germanium, gallium, antimony and tungsten, before expanding to others.

The minerals plan comes at a time when the administration is moving to rapidly deploy artificial intelligence tools elsewhere, including collaborations with OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet's Google to use generative AI.

China is the world's largest producer or processor of many minerals considered critical by the US government. Beijing has used this advantage in recent years to produce minerals at a loss and drive down market prices, a backdrop that has forced Western rivals to close businesses.

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