TORONTO – The American and Chinese presidents may have struck an agreement to ease China’s sharp curbs on exporting critical minerals, but G7 politicians meeting in Toronto said Thursday they’re still pushing ahead with plans to find alternative supplies of the crucial resource.

Canada strives to mine and refine more of the substances — needed in everything from electric cars to fighter jets — and figures large in those plans, at least one of the G7 representatives indicated.

“The agenda (to broaden critical mineral supply) hasn’t changed,” Katherina Reiche, Germany’s minister for economic affairs and energy, told reporters a day after the Beijing-Washington accord. “It will be a hot topic.”

“Canada is one of our most interesting and important partners when it comes to critical material

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