The US is racing to wean itself off China’s REEs but is domesticising more projects driving it to the finishing line?
Rare earth elements (REEs) – a group of 17 metals economically found in bastnaesite, monazite, loparite and lateritic ion-adsorption clays – featured heavily in trade relations during the first year of Donald Trumps’ second term as US president.
Soon after he was sworn in last January, the minerals, which are crucial to the US economy and defence, but of which roughly 70% is mined and 90% processed in China, took centre stage in an ongoing trade war between the countries, ultimately restricting the US’ access to its supply and related technology.
While experts and industry have been raising the alarm about the US’– and more broadly, the West’s – overreliance on China’s REEs for decades, last year’s developments appeared to spur renewed vigour in the US government’s intentions to counter China’s dominance of the market.
In a surprise move in July 2025, the Trump administration became the largest shareholder of the US’ only active REE miner, MP Materials, announced $134m in funds for domestic projects and began bolstering supply chains by securing access through partners in Australia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.
The moves appear to be having an initial impact. A recent Reuters analysis of International Energy Agency data suggests that a multi-billion-dollar pipeline of rare earth projects around the world, including on US soil, is set to partly wean the US off Chinese rare earths. While China would still supply roughly 60% of the world’s key magnet-making rare earths, including Neodymium, Praseodymium, Dysprosium and Terbium, by 2030, the US is on course to meet about 95% of its own demand domestically.
However, there is a big caveat to these positive projections; they assume today’s pipeline of projects are built and scaled on schedule – something experts are sceptical the US will achieve in this timeframe.
Ramping up US-based REE projects
At the centre of US efforts is MP Material’s Mountain Pass mine, the largest REE mine in the US. Since late 2023 the mine has produced, separated and refined praseodymium-neodymium oxide, cerium chloride, lanthanum carbonate and its heavy rare earth concentrate, containing a variety of medium and heavy rare earth elements which it sells only to customers outside of China since the Chinese tariffs imposed last year.
Heidi Vella 