The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - April 18, 2025
MP Materials' decision to stop shipping rare earths to China breaks a master link in critical mineral supply chains.
Rare earth metal produced at MP Materials' Independence facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
Mountain Pass is the only rare earths-producing mine in the United States and the largest outside of China.
Under the enormous strain of a technology and trade war that began under the Biden administration and intensified after President Trump returned to office, MP Materials has officially severed a key link in America's rare earth supply chain by ceasing shipments of rare earth concentrates mined in California to China for processing.
"In response to China's retaliatory tariffs and export controls, MP Materials (NYSE: MP) has ceased shipments of rare earth concentrate to China," the U.S. rare earths miner and processor stated April 17. "Selling our valuable critical materials under 125% tariffs is neither commercially rational nor aligned with America's national interest."
While the back-and-forth rise of tariffs to astronomical levels added enough weight to break the rare earths link between the U.S. and China, the critical minerals supply chain began showing stress following China's embargo on rare earth exports to Japan in 2010 and has been near its breaking point over the past two years.
In 2023, China placed government controls on the exports of gallium and germanium in response to the Biden administration banning American-made computer chipmaking technologies and high-bandwidth memory chips from being sold to Chinese-owned companies.
Over the ensuing two years, China has expanded the list of critical minerals that must receive government approvals to be shipped out of the country, along with the severity of its export restrictions. The list of critical minerals under Chinese export restrictions or bans is now up to 15, which includes the recent government controls placed on seven rare earths vital to aerospace, auto manufacturing, nuclear energy, and advanced weapons systems.
While the escalating tech and trade war between the U.S. and China strained and weakened critical mineral supply chains – not just between the economic superpowers but around the globe – MP's decision to no longer ship its rare earth products to China for processing breaks a master link holding the supply chains together.
"MP Materials took a big risk to maintain and develop its domestic source of some critical rare earths, and took it a step further to establish a processing plant in Texas. I applaud its decision to decouple from China as much as possible," Ann Bridges, co-author of "Undermining Power, How to Overthrow Mineral, Energy, Economic & National Security Disinformation," told Metal Tech News.
Mountain Pass is the only rare earths-producing mine in the United States and the largest outside of China.
MP's key status in U.S.-China supply chains does not rest solely on the fact that the company's Mountain Pass project in Southern California's Mojave Desert is home to the only rare earths mine in the U.S. and the largest outside of China.
Instead, MP's need to ship its rare earths to China is symbolic of America and the West critical minerals weak link– a dearth of the processing capacity needed to produce the minor metals essential to economic and national security.
Due to the lack of processing capacity in the West, MP has had no viable alternatives to shipping rare earth concentrates to China to be separated and upgraded to useable rare earth metals when it reopened the Mountain Pass mine in 2017.
This left the U.S. in a position of being the home to a mine producing more than 10% of the world's rare earths and still being wholly dependent on China for supply of this suite of 17 elements prized for their use in clean energy and high-tech manufacturing.
Over the past eight years, the company has been scaling up its ability to process rare earths at Mountain Pass.
"MP has invested nearly $1 billion to restore the full rare earth supply chain in the United States," the company stated. "Today, our California refinery is processing nearly half of our production, with virtually all of that material sold into markets outside China – including Japan, South Korea, and the United States."
This hefty investment in processing is beginning to pay off. In January, the company announced the start of neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) metal production at its Independence plant in Fort Worth, Texas.
"This milestone marks a major step forward in restoring a fully integrated rare earth magnet supply chain in the United States," MP Materials Chairman and CEO James Litinsky said at the time.
The NdPr metal being produced at MP's Texas plant is a primary ingredient in the rare earth magnets used in electric vehicle motors, robots, drones, wind turbines, smartphones, computers, MRIs, and countless other consumer and industrial products.
Considering that neodymium and praseodymium are the most sought-after rare earths, due in large part to the high demand being driven by EVs, refining domestically mined rare earths into metals that can be used in magnets is a major landmark along the path of establishing critical mineral supply chains independent of China.
Rare earth metal produced at MP Materials' Independence facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
Despite the progress made at its mine in California and magnets plant in Texas, MP still has a long way to go to be able to meet America's demand for neodymium and praseodymium, not to mention the 15 other rare earths, while the U.S. remains highly dependent on China for more than two dozen other critical minerals.
"We continue to produce and are stockpiling concentrate while accelerating downstream operations: ramping oxide production, fast-tracking heavy rare earth separation, and bringing magnet production online in Texas," the company said.
With China cutting off the export of seven rare earths and tariffs elevating the price of the rest, MP says it is getting calls from manufacturers looking for secure and resilient supplies of both rare earths and magnets. The company is also encouraged by the determination of Washington policymakers to support American industry.
"Together with our customers and U.S. government partners, we are accelerating every phase of our strategy to reindustrialize the rare earth supply chain – on American soil," the company wrote.
The amount of investment and effort it is going to take to reforge an all-American supply chain may best be reflected in a LinkedIn post by MP announcing it will no longer be shipping rare earths to China.
The post simply reads, "Time to lean in, America!"
With more than 17 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration, and technology metals.
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