Colombia and US Sign Rare Earths Deal

Yesterday, while the major headlines surrounding Marco Rubio’s visit to Colombia focused on military cooperation, the fight against drug trafficking, and the possible expansion of the U.S. presence on Colombian territory, a development of enormous economic and strategic importance also took place in Barranquilla: Colombia and the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen cooperation on critical minerals and rare earths.

The agreement opens a new dimension in the relationship between the two countries. Washington is seeking to reduce its dependence on China for materials essential to industries such as technology, energy, and defense, while Colombia is once again trying to turn its mineral resources into a source of investment, industry, and jobs.

The memorandum does not give the United States ownership of Colombian deposits, but it does create a framework for companies and institutions from both countries to work together on their exploration, processing, and commercialization, while the South American country faces the historic challenge of avoiding a repeat of past policies based on selling natural resources at low prices.

Colombia and the US sign rare earths deal

The agreement was signed during Rubio’s official visit to Barranquilla, where the secretary of state met with President Abelardo de la Espriella. The meeting was dominated by announcements on security, drug trafficking, migration, and military cooperation.

Rubio even left open the possibility of a future joint military base in Colombia, while Washington confirmed its willingness to support the government with intelligence, training, and equipment.

At the same time, however, Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula and Rubio signed two memoranda. One focuses on strategic minerals and rare earths, while the other addresses civilian nuclear cooperation. The first is particularly significant because it brings Colombia into a U.S. strategy aimed at building alternative supply chains to those dominated by China.

Rare earths are a group of 17 chemical elements that are essential for manufacturing components for electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronic devices, batteries, and high-tech equipment, as well as systems linked to the defense industry.

Their importance has grown as the United States and other powers seek to reduce their dependence on China, which maintains a dominant position in much of the world’s extraction and, especially, processing of these materials.

Son dos instrumentos de cooperación estratégica en materia de:

1️⃣ Minerales críticos y tierras raras.
2️⃣ Energía nuclear civil.

Ambos buscan fortalecer la cooperación bilateral en áreas estratégicas para el desarrollo económico, energético y productivo de Colombia. pic.twitter.com/VAu19Z2a32

— Cancillería Colombia (@CancilleriaCol) September 8, 2026

What the memorandum establishes and what the US is seeking

The document creates a bilateral framework to develop “resilient, diversified and fair” supply chains for critical minerals and rare earths. One of its main objectives is for both governments to mobilize public and private resources to identify and finance extraction and processing projects over the next six months.

The mechanisms contemplated include guarantees, loans, equity participation, future production purchase agreements, insurance, and regulatory facilitation.

The agreement also calls for accelerating project authorization processes, developing mechanisms to protect market prices, reviewing certain mining asset sales from a national security perspective, promoting recycling technologies, and deepening cooperation on geological mapping.

For Colombia, the stated objective goes beyond extracting and exporting raw materials. The government says it wants to move toward value-added processing, technological innovation, and the creation of formal jobs in mining regions.

It also seeks to expand geological knowledge of the country’s territory and attract responsible investment under environmental, social, and governance standards.

For Washington, the agreement has a strategic dimension. The United States needs to secure alternative suppliers of minerals essential to its industry and energy transition, at a time when competition with China for control of these supply chains has become an economic and national security issue.

The timing is not coincidental either. Just days earlier, the Trump administration had reached a historic agreement with Venezuela to expand U.S. access to its enormous oil reserves. Washington is thus consolidating its position on two natural resources of enormous strategic value in South America: Venezuelan oil and, now, Colombian critical raw materials.

However, the Colombian memorandum does not mean that the United States has obtained automatic exploitation rights. It is a nonbinding instrument, subject to Colombian law and respect for national sovereignty. The access Washington is seeking will be built through projects, investments, and subsequent agreements.

A new piece of the alliance

The De la Espriella government presents the agreement as an opportunity to transform Colombia’s mineral wealth into industry and development. This will truly be the main challenge for his government: avoiding past policies in which the country sold its natural resources at low prices without managing to establish a strong industry capable of generating sustainable development and benefiting the country.

Likewise, the challenge for Colombia also has an environmental dimension. Rare earths are extracted through open-pit mining and separated through complex chemical processes, and their level of pollution is, according to experts, very high due to the use of acids and the generation of toxic waste.

For the United States, meanwhile, the two memoranda represent another piece in the construction of supply chains that move away from China, its main global competitor both economically and geopolitically.

Thus, behind the security announcements that dominated Rubio’s visit, Colombia also began integrating itself into another strategic battle: the global dispute over control of the minerals that will underpin much of the economy and technology of the future.

Meanwhile, the left-wing opposition has openly criticized both Rubio’s visit and the agreements reached. “From the Pacto Histórico, the country’s main opposition force, we demand respect for our dignity, independence, and freedom as a democratic and sovereign nation,” said Senator Ivan Cepeda, the parliamentary leader of the opposition in Colombia.

The politician recalled that “for now, any international agreement or accord that creates obligations for the Colombian state must be approved by Congress and the Constitutional Court,” something that, in this case and at this point, has not occurred.