Brazil has not answered two American proposals to formalise cooperation on critical minerals, a senior US diplomat said at Latin America’s largest mining fair, leaving Washington without a bilateral deal as it races to build rare earth supply chains outside China.

A draft framework agreement sent in February also went unanswered.

“We’ll probably have to wait till the election, no matter what happens,” Lowe told the audience in Belo Horizonte on Tuesday, referring to Brazil’s presidential vote in October.

Lowe was speaking at Exposibram, the conference run by the Brazilian Mining Institute, alongside officials from France, Canada, Australia and Britain, most of whose governments have signed the kind of agreement Washington cannot get from Brasilia.

The five spent the session describing how they intend to loosen China’s grip on mineral processing without once naming China.