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Last week, during her visit to the U.S., Foreign Minister B. Battsetseg participated in the high-level 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial” convened by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, bringing together representatives from 55 countries to strengthen cooperation, investment, and resilient global supply chains.

In this issue, we examine Mongolia’s emerging moment in the global critical minerals race — how shifting geopolitics, supply chain security concerns, and growing third-neighbor engagement are creating new strategic opportunities beyond geographic constraints.

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The 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington brought together more than 50 nations, from Mongolia to Angola, to discuss forging critical minerals supply chains less exposed to Chinese market dominance. Vice President JD Vance proposed a mechanism to return the global critical minerals market to a “healthier, more competitive state” through establishing a “preferential trade zone” with enforceable price floors and granting members the foundation for private financing and secure access to critical minerals. The United States signed 11 new bilateral frameworks or memorandums of understanding (MOUs) at the event with countries including Argentina, Ecuador, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Peru, and the Philippines. It also relaunched the U.S.-led Minerals Security Partnership as FORGE, a coalition of countries focused on rapidly scaling up public and private investment across critical minerals supply chains, chaired by South Korea.

“Our goal here – and the reason why we’re doing this conference – is to align trade policy, development finance, and diplomatic engagement towards a shared strategic objective. And that objective is very simple: diversifying global supply in the critical minerals market while strengthening the partner countries who help all of us in this shared effort,” Vance stated in the opening remarks of the ministerial.

Vance expressed his wish to form a trading bloc among American allies and partners that expands production across the entire bloc.

“What is before all of us is an opportunity at self-reliance, that we never have to rely on anybody else, except for each other, for the critical minerals necessary to sustain our industries and to sustain growth,” Vance added.

Though the ambition of the ministerial is clear, the details appear scarce. As the Natural Resource Governance Institute has observed, "it is unclear whether the initiative will secure the political and economic buy-in from major producing and consuming countries to move forward." Timelines ranging from 30 days to six months have been outlined for the development of MOUs and action plans related to the proposed mechanism.

Despite the initiative remaining more aspirational than concrete, for Mongolia, its importance lies less in its immediate results than in what it signals. The ministerial meeting serves as a stark reminder that interest in non-Chinese critical minerals supplies has very much materialized into a pressing strategic priority in Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul, among others. This heightened interest in the critical minerals supply chain appears to present Mongolia a leverage to advance its national interests: economic growth and the preservation of sovereignty.

Mongolia is richly endowed with copper, uranium, fluorspar, rare earths, and other critical minerals.6 The country hosts Oyu Tolgoi, which is expected to become the fourth largest copper mine in the world by 2030. France's Orano is moving toward uranium production by 2028 under a $1.6 billion agreement with the Mongolian government. The country leads in fluorspar reserves and holds proven deposits of rare earths and other minerals deemed critical by advanced economies.

Yet, looming in the background of this impressive resource endowment, is the geographic reality that Mongolia is doubly landlocked between Russia and China. Every mineral export must transit through one of its two neighbors. This reality has long shaped Mongolia’s economic and diplomatic calculations, reinforcing the perception that geography imposes hard limits on how much autonomy the country can exercise.

While the ministerial has not yet offered concrete instruments nor eliminated this geographic constraint, it nevertheless challenges this defeatist perception. For years, Ulaanbaatar has fatefully pursued its Third Neighbor Policy to balance its precarious position diplomatically. What the current moment offers is the possibility/opportunity of extending that policy into the economic domain.

If Mongolia can develop its mining sector in ways that create shared interests with powerful third parties, it gains a form of leverage that goes beyond diplomacy. Mongolian leaders should thus be seriously evaluating how to turn this heightened strategic interest into concrete strategy.

Mongolia has already taken a few preliminary steps in doing this over the years. It held a trilateral Critical Minerals Dialogue with the United States and South Korea, established a rare metals cooperation framework with South Korea, signed a memorandum with the United Kingdom on rare earths research, and maintains strategic partnership ties with Germany.7 However, memorandums alone aren’t equal to securing indispensable roles in supply chains, as true economic leverage can emerge only when security, diplomacy, and commercial interests are at stake…