Trump has launched the United States’ most aggressive rare-earth and critical-minerals expansion in more than a decade, signing over $10 billion in supply-chain deals across Australia, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand in less than a week. The flurry of agreements aims to cut China’s 90 percent grip on global refining capacity and establish a network of Indo-Pacific partners for mining, processing, and stockpiling key materials vital to defense and clean-tech industries.On Tuesday, the United States and Japan signed an agreement to secure…