Barcelona roars back to win 3-2 at Levante as Atletico Madrid drops more points

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Barcelona fought back from a two-goal deficit to win 3-2 at Levante with a late own-goal by the hosts in the Spanish league on Saturday.

Defending champion Barcelona needed Pedri González and Ferran Torres to score early in the second half to equalize after the newly promoted Levante had rolled to a surprise two-goal lead at halftime.

Lamine Yamal then helped to produce the winning goal when he curled a cross into the six-yard box and Levante’s Unai Elgezabal headed into his own net.

Levante striker Iván Romero earlier struck from a counterattack in the 15th minute that started with a ball lost by Yamal. José Luis Morales made it 2-0 in first-half injury time by converting a penalty after a video review called a handball by Alejandro Balde when he blocked Morales' shot.

But Pedri started the fightback in the 49th when he received Yamal's pass well outside the area, picked his spot in the corner of the net and blasted in a shot from long range.

Ferran, who had hit the woodwork in the first half, leveled in the 52nd when he fended off his marker and volleyed in Raphinha's corner kick.

Barcelona then pressed for the decider that Yamal helped find just after the 90 minutes were up.

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick praised Pedri for his goal, saying “it changed the match.”

“The first goal we scored helped us a lot to get our confidence in the box, but until the end it was not easy for us to get the three points.”

Barcelona won its opener at nine-man Mallorca 3-0 last weekend.

Newcomer Marcus Rashford made his first league start for Barcelona since his loan move from Manchester United as a left-side forward for Flick. He was replaced by Dani Olmo at halftime, after the biggest threats had come from Pedri’s passes in the middle and Yamal’s incursions down the right.

“I think Marcus had some situations in the first half where he showed how good he is and how he can help us, and that is how we have to continue,” Flick said.

Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski played his first minutes of the season as a late substitute after recovering from a muscle injury.

Atletico Madrid stumbled for a second straight game to start the season after squandering its lead in a 1-1 draw with promoted Elche.

Diego Simeone’s club revamped its already deep squad this summer with its sights set on challenging Barcelona and Real Madrid for the title. But this is not the start the Argentine coach wanted with his team having just one point so far.

Just like its 2-1 loss at Espanyol the previous weekend, Atletico’s defense was uncharacteristically unable to protect a lead against Elche even with the backing of its home supporters.

Alexander Sorloth, who started alongside Julian Álvarez up front for Atletico, scored a fine eighth-minute opener when he ran onto a pass by defender David Hancko and looped an angled strike home.

Sorloth had a chance to make it a double moments later, but Elche goalkeeper Matías Dituro blocked his shot from inside the box.

Elche then stunned the Metropolitano with a quick passing buildup that culminated with an assist from German Valera for striker Rafa Mir to beat Jan Oblak in the 15th.

Giuliano Simeone erred with a shot that could have put Atletico back in front before halftime but instead hit the far post.

“We are working hard to get the most out of our players,” Simeone said. “With patience and work, the results will come. We can’t change course because we had two games that we deserved, at least, not to lose.”

Elche, a modest club from southeastern Spain, had also fought back in the opening round of games with a 1-1 draw with Real Betis.

Mallorca also scored late in a 1-1 draw with Celta Vigo.

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Barcelona's Lamine Yamal sends a cross during the La Liga soccer match between Levante and Barcelon in Valencia, Spain, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025. ((AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Barcelona's Lamine Yamal reacts during the La Liga soccer match between Levante and Barcelon in Valencia, Spain, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025. ((AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Barcelona's Lamine Yamal reacts athe the end of the La Liga soccer match between Levante and Barcelon in Valencia, Spain, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025. ((AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Barcelona platers celebrate after a goal during the La Liga soccer match between Levante and Barcelon in Valencia, Spain, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025. ((AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Barcelona's Ferran Torres reacts after scoring during the La Liga soccer match between Levante and Barcelon in Valencia, Spain, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025. ((AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers have proposed creating a new agency with $2.5 billion to spur production of rare earths and the other critical minerals, while the Trump administration has already taken aggressive actions to break China's grip on the market for these materials that are crucial to high-tech products, including cellphones, electric vehicles, jet fighters and missiles.

It’s too early to tell how the bill, if passed, could align with the White House’s policy, but whatever the approach, the U.S. is in a crunch to drastically reduce its reliance on China, after Beijing used its dominance of the critical minerals market to gain leverage in the trade war with Washington. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a one-year truce in October, by which Beijing would continue to export critical minerals while the U.S. would ease its export controls of U.S. technology on China.

The Pentagon has shelled out nearly $5 billion over the past year to help ensure its access to the materials after the trade war laid bare just how beholden the U.S. is to China, which processes more than 90% of the world's critical minerals. To break Beijing's chokehold, the U.S. government is taking equity stakes in a handful of critical mineral companies and in some cases guaranteeing the price of some commodities using an approach that seems more likely to come out of China's playbook instead of a Republican administration.

The bill that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced Thursday would favor a more market-based approach by setting up the independent body charged with building a stockpile of critical minerals and related products, stabilizing prices, and encouraging domestic and allied production to help ensure stable supply not only for the military but also the broader economy and manufacturers.

Shaheen called the legislation “a historic investment” to make the U.S. economy more resilient against China’s dominance that she said has left the U.S. vulnerable to economic coercion. Young said creating the new reserve is “a much-needed, aggressive step to protect our national and economic security.”

Rep. Rob Wittman, R.-Va., introduced the House version of the bill.

When Trump imposed widespread tariffs last spring, Beijing fought back not only with tit-for-tat tariffs but severe restrictions on the export of critical minerals, forcing Washington to back down and eventually agree to the truce when the leaders met in South Korea.

On Monday, in his speech at SpaceX, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the Pentagon has in the past five months alone “deployed over $4.5 billion in capital commitments” to close six critical minerals deals that will “help free the United States from market manipulation.”

One of the deals involves a $150 million of preferred equity by the Pentagon in Atlantic Alumina Co. to save the country's last alumina refinery and build its first large-scale gallium production facility in Louisiana.

Last year, the Pentagon announced it would buy $400 million of preferred stock in MP Materials, which owns the country's only operational rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, California, and entered into a $1.4-billion joint partnership with ReElement Technologies Corp. to build up a domestic supply chain for rare earth magnets.

On Wednesday, Trump announced in a proclamation that the U.S. is “too reliant” on foreign-sourced critical minerals and directed his administration to negotiate better deals. He said possible remedies would include minimum import prices for certain critical minerals.

“Reshoring manufacturing that’s critical to our national and economic security is a top priority for the Trump administration,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson.

The drastic move by the U.S. government to take equity stakes has prompted some analysts to observe that Washington is pivoting to some form of state capitalism to compete with Beijing.

“Despite the dangers of political interference, the strategic logic is compelling,” wrote Elly Rostoum, a senior fellow at the Washington-based research institute Center for European Policy Analysis. She suggested that the new model could be “a prudent way for the U.S. to ensure strategic autonomy and industrial sovereignty.”

Companies across the industry are welcoming the intervention from Trump's administration.

“He is playing three-dimensional chess on critical minerals like no previous president has done. It's about time too, given the military and strategic vulnerability we face by having to import so many of these fundamental building blocks of technology and national defense,” NioCorp's Chief Communications Officer Jim Sims said. That company is trying to finish raising the money it needs to build a mine in southeast Nebraska.

In addition to trying to boost domestic production, the Trump administration has sought to secure some of these crucial elements through allies. In October, Trump signed an $8.5 billion agreement with Australia to invest in mining there, and the president is now aggressively trying to take over Greenland in the hope of being able to one day extract rare earths from there.

On Monday, finance ministers from the G7 nations huddled in Washington over their vulnerability in the critical mineral supply chains.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has led several rounds of trade negotiations with Beijing, urged attendees to increase their supply chain resiliency and thanked them for their willingness to work together “toward decisive action and lasting solutions,” according to a Treasury statement.

The bill introduced on Thursday by Shaheen and Young would encourage production with both domestic and allied producers.

Congress in the past several years has pushed for legislation to protect the U.S. military and civilian industry from Beijing's chokehold. The issue became a pressing concern every time China turned to its proven tactics of either restricting the supply or turned to dumping extra critical minerals on the market to depress prices and drive any potential competitors out of business.

The Biden administration sought to increase demand for critical minerals domestically by pushing for more electric vehicle and windmill production. But the Trump administration largely eliminated the incentives for those products and instead chose to focus on increasing critical minerals production directly.

Most of those past efforts were on a much more limited scale than what the government has done in the past year, and they were largely abandoned after China relented and eased access to critical minerals.

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to the report.

FILE - NioCorp Chief Operating Officer Scott Honan tells a group of investors about the plans for a proposed mine during a tour of the site Oct. 6, 2021, near Elk Creek in southeast Nebraska. (AP Photo/Josh Funk, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shake hands before their meeting at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

FILE - Workers use machinery to dig at a rare earth mine in Ganxian county in central China's Jiangxi province on Dec. 30, 2010. (Chinatopix via AP, File)