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Christopher Luxon says New Zealand is one of many countries having talks with the US. Photo / Mark Mitchell/Getty Images

The Prime Minister says a critical mineral sector in New Zealand is going to “need support” and “require capital investment”.

However, he wouldn’t be drawn on whether that is something the United States could assist with as part of a potential framework as no deal has been finalised.

As the
Herald has reported conversations have been underway between NZ and the US on a potential critical minerals framework. Last week, a top NZ diplomat met with a senior official from Trump’s administration, during which they “committed to explore further opportunities to expand co-operation on critical minerals”.

Christopher Luxon on Monday emphasised a deal with the Americans wasn’t a “fait accompli” but NZ was “going to need support” to kickstart a critical minerals sector.

“We’re not like Australia that’s had [critical mineral mining] well-established for some time and had it available and have had a well-established business and sector,” he said.

“We actually don’t have anything and so we’d have to make serious investments and that will require capital from domestic purposes and overseas purposes to do that. As to the construct of any deal, we’re not anywhere near that.”

The US Department of States’ Under-Secretary for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg over the weekend said conversations with NZ “span everything from mineral extraction to midstream processing”.

Asked by the Herald what role the US could have with mineral extraction in NZ, Luxon said “We’re going to need support to actually undertake and kick off a sector”.