US and Finland sign critical minerals framework and Technology Prosperity Deal in Washington

The United States and Finland signed two memoranda of understanding in Washington on 29 October 2026: a Critical Minerals Framework and a Technology Prosperity Deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen put their names to the documents in the State Department’s Colin L. Powell Treaty Room, after talks the department described as aimed at strengthening economic and security cooperation.

The texts of the two memoranda were not part of the material the State Department published, so their detailed provisions are not yet known. What the two ministers said in public, and the department’s readout, show the direction of the agreements.

What Rubio and Valtonen said

Rubio described the minerals framework as the foundation of modern technology, covering everything “from semiconductors to batteries to defense systems to energy infrastructure”. He said Finland has “extraordinary expertise in mining, in refining, and in processing”, which made it an ideal partner on the subject. The Technology Prosperity Deal, he said, marks a milestone in cooperation on critical and emerging technologies, with Finnish strengths he listed as quantum, telecom, nuclear energy, space systems, engineering and biotech.

Valtonen said it was her third bilateral meeting with Rubio in Washington during his tenure, and that the two had also met several times on the sidelines of UN and NATO meetings, most recently in New York a month earlier at an Arctic allies meeting. She said two-way trade in goods and services between the two countries had grown by more than 60 percent in the past few years, and that US direct investment in Finland had more than doubled. Besides the new documents she named icebreakers, industrial products, connectivity and artificial intelligence as key areas of cooperation.

She also tied the economic agenda to security: “The ever-closer Finnish-U.S. security and defense ties have further reinforced the wider economic relationship,” she said.

The readout

In its readout of the meeting, the State Department said the two signed the U.S.-Finland Technology Prosperity Deal and a Critical Minerals Framework Agreement “to support technology collaboration and secure critical supply chains”. It added that both sides stressed the importance of cooperation on critical minerals and of continued defense investment.

Context

Rubio met Hungary’s foreign minister on the same day, and Geopolitiki reported on the memoranda he signed with her in Rubio and Hungary’s Orbán sign energy and anti-left-wing-violence memoranda in Washington.

The Finnish agreements are framework documents between governments. Neither the readout nor the remarks gave financial figures, project names or timelines, and the department did not say whether further implementing arrangements will follow.