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  China controls the rare earths the world buys - can Trump's new deals change that? US President Donald Trump has signed a flurry of deals on his Asia visit to secure the supply of rare earths, a critical sector that China has long dominated. The deals with Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia differ in size and substance and it's too early to assess their tangible impact. But they all include efforts to diversify access to the minerals that have become essential for advanced manufacturing, from electric vehicles to smartphones. The agreements, which aim to lock partners into trading with the US, are a clear bid to reduce dependence on China, ahead of a key meeting with its leader Xi Jinping. They could eventually challenge Beijing's stranglehold over rare earths, but experts say it will be a costly process that will take years. "Building new mines, refining facilities, and processing plants in regions such as Australia, the United States, and Europe comes ...
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Italy's Meloni heads to US with unlikely mission for Europe


Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is heading to the US to meet Donald Trump – a visit that will see her walk a tightrope between representing the interests of the EU and remaining in the US president's good books.

As the first European leader to travel to Washington since Trump introduced - then paused – 20% tariffs on the EU earlier in April, Meloni will be hoping to convince him of the merits of a "zero-for-zero" tariffs deal for the entire EU.

Italy is particularly vulnerable to any changes to US trade policy.

Around 10% of its exports - worth about €67bn (£57bn; $76bn) - go to the US, Italy's third biggest non-EU trading partner, and the tariffs announced by Trump earlier this month caused Rome to halve its growth forecast.

"We know this is a difficult time," Meloni said ahead of her trip. "We will do our best – I am aware of what I represent and of what I am defending."

At this fraught moment, she is perhaps one of the best-placed current European leaders to speak to Trump. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen recognises that and they have been speaking regularly ahead of the trip.

Trump and Meloni famously enjoy a good relationship and have lavished praise on one another in the past. He has called her a "fantastic woman" who has "really taken Europe by storm".

For her part, Meloni – who has headed a right-wing coalition government since 2022 - is ideologically closer to Trump than to some of her European neighbours.

In a video message to a US conservative conference in February, she echoed some of Trump's common talking points, railing against mass migration, "globalist elites" and "woke ideology".

She was also the only European leader to attend the US president's inauguration in January, and has steered clear of overtly criticising the work of his administration since.

The harshest criticism she has dispensed was earlier this month, when she said Trump's decision to impose 20% tariffs on the EU was "absolutely wrong" and that it would end up damaging the EU "as much as the US".

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