South America’s Critical Minerals Push: Cooperation, Competition and Bargaining Power

What Changed on 28 August 2026

Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru signed their joint declaration in Santiago after a week of regional mining diplomacy. The document is framed around strategic minerals for regional integration and explicitly seeks to position the region as a strategic and reliable partner in the global supply of minerals required for decarbonisation, electromobility and artificial intelligence.

The agenda goes beyond extraction. The four governments commit to promoting responsible investment and economic development across the regional industry value chain. They also want to explore technical and institutional cooperation in mining oversight, geology, public policy and specialised human capital, while seeking multilateral technical and financial support for regional initiatives.

That matters because the declaration follows a broader ministerial process. Two days earlier, the XVI Conference of Mining Ministries of the Americas brought together authorities from twelve countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile. CEPAL described the meeting as a forum for regional coordination, joint action, knowledge exchange, local productive linkages, research and innovation.

Chile is the clearest policy driver behind this logic. Its January 2026 National Critical Minerals Strategy includes five pillars, one of which is explicitly international insertion and mineral diplomacy. The August declaration turns that concept into a regional political platform.

This Is Not a Mineral Cartel — and That May Be the Point

The idea of collective mineral power is not new. In 2022 and 2023, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia discussed closer lithium coordination, and Brazil was later included in public discussion of a possible "lithium OPEC". The concept attracted attention because the lithium triangle concentrated a large share of known resources while battery demand was rising rapidly.

But the OPEC analogy was always structurally difficult. Lithium does not operate like crude oil. Countries differ sharply in ownership models, project maturity, extraction technology, investment policy and industrial objectives. Alternative producers exist outside South America, and pricing is more fragmented than in oil.

A 2024 academic feasibility study reached a similar conclusion: an OPEC-style lithium cartel was probably too ambitious given current production capacity and market influence, while more practical regional cooperation offered a more realistic path.

The 2026 declaration looks much closer to that practical model. It broadens the agenda beyond lithium and shifts the focus from direct price control toward supply-chain position, investment, technical cooperation, institutions and value addition.

The Five-Country Equation Is More Important Than the Four Signatures

The new declaration is formally a four-country initiative. Economically, however, any South American critical-minerals strategy becomes much larger when Brazil is added to the map.

The complementarity is important. Chile, Peru and Argentina strengthen the copper axis. Chile, Argentina and Bolivia anchor the lithium discussion. Brazil adds minerals that change the strategic profile of the region, especially niobium, graphite and rare-earth potential.

For a closer look at the country-specific structure, Econosur's Chile mining investment analysis, Argentina copper analysis and Brazil critical-minerals and rare-earth analysis show why a single "South American minerals market" would be too simplistic.

Brazil Is Missing From the Signature — Not From the Strategy

Brazil did not sign the 28 August declaration. That is a fact. It should not automatically be interpreted as Brazilian rejection of regional mineral coordination.

Brazil participated in the CAMMA ministerial meeting on 26 August. More importantly, Brazil and Chile already signed a mining letter of intent in August 2024 covering strategic minerals for the energy transition. The Brazilian government described the implementation of those activities as creating a favourable environment for integration of the mining sector across South America.

At the same time, Brazil has developed a clearly national strategic framework. Its National Mining Plan 2050, presented in July 2026, treats mineral supply security, national sovereignty, stronger productive chains and critical and strategic minerals as long-term priorities. The National Mining Agency separately identifies Brazil as relevant in lithium, nickel, copper, niobium, manganese and graphite, with significant geological potential in rare earths.

Brazil’s framework advanced from parliamentary approval to enacted policy with Law 15,506 of 16 September 2026, establishing the national critical-minerals policy and industrialisation council. The enacted framework covers processing, value creation and traceability. Enactment should be distinguished from implementation, committed project finance and funds actually disbursed.

Brazil is also widening bilateral institutional links. On 9 September, the ANM met Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian embassy to discuss critical minerals, innovation, regulation and technical cooperation ahead of a planned Brazil–Canada mining memorandum of understanding.

That creates a different role from simply joining a lithium-centred producer group. Brazil can potentially supply a broader mineral portfolio and link it to a much larger domestic industrial base.

This is why Econosur's Brazil critical-minerals question is fundamentally an industrial one: whether geological potential is converted into mining output alone or into processing, technology and higher-value production. The Brazil rare-earth project pipeline adds another layer to that issue.

Argentina Shows Why Cooperation and Competition Can Coexist

Argentina is the clearest example of the tension inside the emerging regional model.

On one side, Argentina signed the regional declaration and is deepening physical mining integration with Chile. On the other, it is aggressively competing for international capital through the Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones, or RIGI.

Official Economy Ministry data published in June showed 16 approved RIGI projects with almost US$29.9 billion in committed investment and another 25 projects representing US$111 billion under evaluation across RIGI sectors. For mining specifically, the Argentine Chamber of Mining Companies reported to the Senate on 27 August that 17 mining projects worth US$39 billion had been submitted under RIGI, with 12 projects representing US$21 billion already approved.

Econosur has already examined the execution logic behind this incentive regime in its RIGI analysis. In critical minerals, the key point is that regional cooperation does not replace national competition for project capital.

Argentina's bilateral relationship with the United States makes that even clearer. On 4 February 2026, the two countries signed a specific framework to strengthen supply in critical-mineral mining and processing. One day later, on 5 February, they signed the broader Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and Investment (ARTI). Article 4.1 of ARTI commits Argentina to facilitate US investment in critical-mineral projects, fast-track eligible applications through RIGI and states an intention to prioritise the United States as a trade and investment partner for copper, lithium and other critical minerals over market-manipulating economies or enterprises.

The Buyers Are Organising Too

Producer coordination only makes sense when viewed against changes on the demand side.

In April 2026, the European Union and the United States launched a strategic partnership on critical minerals and agreed a Critical Minerals Action Plan. The plan explicitly considers tools such as border-adjusted price floors, standards-based markets, price-gap subsidies and offtake agreements, alongside investment, research, stockpiling and rapid-response mechanisms for supply disruptions.

Chile has also expanded its own network of mineral agreements. Its international portfolio includes cooperation instruments with the United States, Brazil, Peru, China, Japan, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Argentina and other partners. That is a form of diversification rather than exclusive alignment.

China remains the structural midstream factor. The IEA's 2026 outlook shows that refining concentration reached new highs in 2025, with China the leading refiner for most key energy minerals. In several strategic materials — including graphite and rare earths — concentration is especially high. The issue for South America is therefore not only who mines the mineral, but who finances, processes, refines and converts it into industrial products.

A second buyer-side requirement is becoming more visible: traceability. On 9 September, the OECD published a new report on lithium and nickel supply chains based partly on field research in Argentina and Chile. It argues that traceability can strengthen supply-chain resilience, responsible sourcing and investment confidence. For suppliers and project developers, this means market access can increasingly depend on data, chain-of-custody systems and governance standards alongside price and production volume.

That dynamic is visible in Chile's existing relationship with China, which Econosur examines in Chile's copper and lithium connection with China.

The Real Test Is Whether Political Coordination Becomes Physical

The strongest evidence that regional integration can move beyond declarations came one day before the four-country pact.

On 27 August, Chile and Argentina approved operating protocols for Vicuña, NexoAndino and Filo Sur under their Mining Integration and Complementation Treaty. The projects straddle the border between San Juan and Atacama, and the protocols establish specific conditions for integrated development.

Chile's Mining Ministry described a portfolio above US$20.7 billion and linked the bilateral framework not only to extraction but also to infrastructure, connectivity, logistics, supplier integration, specialised services, innovation, technology, energy and human capital.

This is the point where regional mineral strategy becomes commercially meaningful. A declaration has limited value if projects, roads, power, ports, processing capacity and supplier systems remain nationally disconnected. Cross-border project execution changes that equation.

The Vicuña system has advanced again since the August protocols. On 10 September, Vicuña announced approximately 55,500 metres of diamond drilling for the 2026–2027 season, mainly at Filo del Sol, with Boart Longyear Argentina and Hy-Tech Griffith Drilling Argentina selected through a competitive process. On 11 September, the company awarded construction of the first 63.6 kilometres of the planned roughly 220-kilometre Northern Corridor to a joint venture formed by Contreras, BBC and San Juan-based Construmin. These are practical supplier and infrastructure decisions emerging from the cross-border project system.

It also connects directly to existing Econosur research on Argentina's emerging copper economy, Chile's copper and lithium investment pipeline and the broader South America strategic-resource analysis. The next generation of Andean projects will increasingly test whether the region can combine geology on one side of a border with ports, engineering, power systems or suppliers on the other.

Where the Commercial Opportunity Actually Opens

For international B2B companies, the value of regional coordination is not an abstract increase in geopolitical influence. It is the possibility that more projects become investable, more infrastructure becomes shared and more procurement demand develops around the same mineral corridors.

The IEA estimates that Latin America currently refines only around one-fifth of the key energy minerals it extracts, excluding lithium. Its 2026 analysis argues that stronger regional integration could improve investment attractiveness, support shared infrastructure, technology transfer and skills, and build more competitive and resilient mineral value chains.

That is the commercial space to watch. The opportunity is not created by a hypothetical South American mineral price. It is created when multiple countries begin solving shared bottlenecks in processing, infrastructure, project finance, traceability and supplier capability. The strategic value therefore sits across several control layers: resource ownership, project operation, finance, infrastructure, processing and long-term offtake.

Three Business Questions

Research Boundary

Marcus A. Volz

Marcus A. Volz is a market analyst and founder of Econosur. His work focuses on South American markets, companies, projects and commercial structures. In mining, he examines how national investment policy, cross-border infrastructure, supply-chain concentration and international partnerships influence where mineral investment becomes executable and where B2B demand actually emerges.