The Rare Earth Paradox: Why America's Critical Minerals Strategy Needs a Reboot

The United States finds itself in a tricky situation as it pushes for independence in securing critical minerals. While these resources can be found in many places globally, the economic realities mean that, outside China, extracting and processing them just isn’t practical. Even with big policy moves focused on places like Greenland, Ukraine, and Africa—and more than $10 billion in recent federal investments—the U.S. is still at least 15 to 20 years away from establishing a truly diversified supply chain through traditional mining and processing.1

Before we go any further, let’s clear up a common confusion that often clouds the conversation about rare earths. When policymakers call out “rare earths” as a strategic risk, they’re rarely referring to the whole group of rare earth elements. Instead, they’re mostly worried about one thing: high-performance permanent magnets—specifically, the neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets found in electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, and defense equipment.

Of the 17 rare earth elements, most aren’t actually all that rare, nor are they essential for national security. Elements like cerium and lanthanum are plentiful and aren’t in danger of running out anytime soon. The real worry is about four elements—neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium—and, even more specifically, about how China dominates the process of turning these elements into finished magnets.2

Why does this matter? Because it shifts how we think about solutions. The real challenge isn’t just about owning rare earth mines—it’s about securing, or even sidestepping, the magnet supply chain altogether. That kind of thinking unlocks possibilities that simply grabbing more territory can’t.

But here’s the catch: that 15-20 year timeline assumes that demand won’t change and that we’ll keep using the same extraction methods we do today. That’s not realistic. The truth is, while Washington keeps focusing on digging up new mines in the Arctic, the real action is happening in materials science labs, recycling plants, and engineering departments across the country. The question isn’t whether the U.S. can mine more than China—it can’t, at least not anytime soon. The real question is whether the U.S. can innovate faster.1

China runs about 70% of global rare earth mining, but that number actually downplays its true influence. The real power comes from processing: China handles 90% of the world’s rare earth refining and makes 94% of the permanent magnets—the final products that drive electric cars, wind turbines, and high-tech weapons. When it comes to the heavy rare earths needed for things like jet fighters and missiles, China’s control is almost total.3 4

That’s why focusing on grabbing mineral-rich land doesn’t solve the problem for the U.S. As Mathan Somasundaram of Deep Data Analytics puts it, “Even if you mined it, then you have to send it to China for processing.” In other words, over the long haul, it really doesn’t change anything.

Right now, the U.S. has just one rare earth refinery—MP Materials’ facility in Texas, turning out about 1,300 metric tons of neodymium-praseodymium alloy each year. Meanwhile, China can process over 270,000 metric tons. That’s a staggering difference.5

So, how did China pull this off? It was all about playing the long game. Back in 1992, Deng Xiaoping famously said, “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths.” From the mid-90s to early 2000s, China ramped up its share of global mining from 48% to 95% by using state subsidies, looser environmental rules, and clever price cuts that drove out Western rivals.6 When California’s Mountain Pass mine tried to make a comeback in 2010, China simply flooded the market and crashed prices. The result? Molycorp, the company behind Mountain Pass, went bankrupt in 2015 and sold off its assets for a fraction of what it spent.7

President Trump’s push to buy Greenland—calling it “an absolute necessity” for national security—was based on the idea that the island holds 39 out of 50 critical minerals the U.S. wants. Those numbers might sound impressive, but a closer look tells a different story.

Greenland’s most promising deposit, Kvanefjeld, can’t even be developed right now because of a 2021 ban on uranium mining—the site holds 270,000 tons of uranium mixed with rare earths. The backup plan, Tanbreez, doesn’t look much better: its ore has just 0.38% rare earth oxide, while Australia’s Mount Weld has 6.4%. No one has ever made a profit extracting rare earths from these types of rocks.8 Add to that Greenland’s tough conditions: 80% of the island is covered in ice, there are only 93 miles of roads (for an island three times the size of Texas), and the mining season is just six months long.9

So, if the numbers look so bad, why does Greenland keep showing up in the news? There are three big reasons why the idea of acquiring new territory sticks around, even when the technical reality doesn’t back it up:

Sovereignty theater: Making territorial claims looks strong and decisive, while announcing a $50 million research grant barely makes a ripple in the news. But threaten to take over an ally’s land, and suddenly you’re in the headlines for weeks.

Cold War reflexes: Many policymakers grew up during a time of resource nationalism, so their first instinct is to think in terms of physically controlling resources. The old mindset of “secure the mine” hangs on—even though, today, the real bottleneck isn’t mining, but processing.

Arctic strategic competition: It’s not just about minerals. China’s 2018 “Polar Silk Road” initiative and its efforts to invest in Greenland’s airports and satellite systems made Western governments nervous about sovereignty. Even though a 2025 Harvard study found that Chinese Arctic investments are often blown out of proportion in Western media, the urge to block them remains strong. Policymakers would rather overpay for Greenland’s limited resources than risk giving China any advantage.10

When the U.S. Export-Import Bank showed interest in putting $120 million toward Tanbreez in June 2025, it wasn’t just about mining. For the Trump administration, this marked their first overseas mining investment—and it was as much about stopping others as it was about getting resources.

The April 2025 U.S.-Ukraine mineral resources agreement—establishing a joint reconstruction investment fund covering 55 minerals—represents a more pragmatic approach than territorial acquisition, but faces its own obstacles. Ukraine possesses Europe’s largest lithium reserves (approximately 500,000 tons), significant titanium deposits (7% of global production), and 20,000+ identified mineral occurrences.11

The agreement requires Ukraine to contribute 50% of royalties and license fees from new resource projects to the joint fund, while granting the U.S. Development Finance Corporation first negotiation rights on offtake agreements. Ukraine’s parliament ratified it unanimously.

But there are major problems from the start. Around 40% of Ukraine’s metal resources are now in areas controlled by Russia. Many of the rare earth deposits found in old Soviet surveys weren’t considered profitable even back then, and nobody has done new studies since.12 On top

of that, Ukraine’s power grid has lost half its capacity since 2022.13 The deal doesn’t even come with clear security guarantees—just what officials call an “implicit economic security guarantee.”14

And here’s the kicker: Even in the best of times, opening a new mine usually takes 10 to 15 years from start to finish.15 Ukraine doesn’t have the stability or certainty needed for that kind of long-term investment.

Here’s what everyone tends to overlook when talking about grabbing new territory: It’s actually high prices and supply risks that push people to innovate. Demand isn’t set in stone—it’s the playing field where the U.S. could actually come out ahead.

In March 2023, Tesla dropped what IEEE Spectrum called “an absolute bombshell”: the company announced its next-generation drive unit would use a permanent magnet motor with zero rare earth elements. Colin Campbell, Tesla’s VP of Powertrain Engineering, confirmed the design was complete.16

Most experts believe Tesla is using ferrite magnets—iron oxide compounds that have been around for decades. Ferrite has only one-tenth the magnetic strength of neodymium iron boron (NdFeB), which conventional wisdom said made it unusable for high-performance EV motors. Tesla apparently found a way around this through motor geometry optimization, likely accepting some weight and efficiency trade-offs.

The market reaction was instructive: Chinese rare earth miners dropped 10%, Lynas fell 11%, MP Materials crashed 11%. MP’s official response was telling: “Did we miss something?” followed by a yawning emoji.17

While Tesla’s approach may involve engineering compromises, Minnesota-based Niron Magnetics is pursuing something more revolutionary: a permanent magnet made from iron and nitrogen that could match or exceed NdFeB performance.

In September 2025, Niron broke ground on a 190,000-square-foot facility for manufacturing iron nitride (Fe₁₆N₂) permanent magnets—a material that has tantalized physicists since the 1970s but proved impossible to manufacture at scale. Niron claims to have solved the manufacturing puzzle. If true, the implications are enormous: iron nitride magnets could deliver magnetic performance exceeding 2 teslas (compared to 1.4-1.6 for NdFeB) while using only abundant iron and nitrogen.18 19

The company has attracted serious backing: GM Ventures and Stellantis Ventures invested $33 million in November 2023, and Minnesota awarded a $10 million grant in October 2025.20 Niron claims its manufacturing process produces approximately 75% lower CO₂ emissions than rare earth mining and processing, uses standard industrial processes with no radioactive waste streams.21

Iron nitride will not replace NdFeB in every application, particularly in extreme aerospace or space environments—but it does not need to. If it captures even a fraction of the civilian motor market, it fundamentally changes the strategic calculus.

The substitution story extends beyond magnet chemistry to motor design itself.

Externally Excited Synchronous Motors (EESM): BMW and supplier AEM have developed motors that use copper coils instead of permanent magnets entirely. These wound-rotor designs eliminate rare earth dependency at the cost of slightly more complex power electronics. BMW’s fifth-generation eDrive system already incorporates this approach.

Switched Reluctance Motors (SRM): Long dismissed as too noisy for passenger vehicles, SRMs use no magnets at all—just shaped iron rotors that “reluctantly” align with magnetic fields. Recent advances in power electronics and acoustic engineering have made them viable candidates for EV applications.

The “Green Discount” economics are increasingly favorable: EESM motors offer 10-15% lower lifetime costs than NdFeB-based designs when factoring in rare earth price volatility. Automakers are discovering that “rare-earth-free” has become a selling point—a supply chain story that consumers and investors understand, and one that China cannot control.44

The conversation about rare earth supply typically focuses on digging new holes in the ground. But there’s another source that’s been hiding in plain sight: the billions of devices already containing rare earth magnets.

The world generates over 62 million metric tons of electronic waste annually—and less than 1% of rare earths are currently recycled. This represents both a massive environmental problem and an untapped resource.22

Hard drives alone contain between 2,500 and 15,000 parts per million of neodymium and praseodymium—concentrations 17 times higher than natural ore deposits. Every smartphone, every wind turbine, every electric vehicle reaching end-of-life contains recoverable magnets.23

The rare earth recycling market, valued at approximately $550 million in 2024, is projected to grow at 7-28% annually through 2033, depending on technology adoption.24 Several companies are racing to capture this opportunity:

• HyProMag (UK/US): Uses hydrogen gas to crack sintered NdFeB magnets into powder for reprocessing. Their Dallas-Fort Worth facility, targeting commissioning by mid-2027, projects annual output of 750 metric tons of recycled magnets from hard drive scrap.25

• Cyclic Materials (Canada): Backed by Jaguar Land Rover and BMW, focuses on recovering rare earths from EV motors and wind turbines.

• Noveon Magnetics (US): Pursuing direct magnet-to-magnet recycling without full separation.

• Phoenix Tailings (US): Developing zero-waste rare earth extraction from mining tailings and e-waste.

Projections suggest recycling could supply 12-70% of U.S. EV rare earth demand by 2050, depending on collection rates and technology efficiency.26

Perhaps the most counterintuitive rare earth source lies in the waste piles of coal-fired power plants. The U.S. has accumulated approximately 52 billion tons of coal combustion residuals since the 1950s—and this ash contains significant rare earth concentrations.

A 2024 study found that U.S. coal ash contains approximately 11 million metric tons of rare earth elements, with an estimated extractable value of $97 billion. Appalachian coal ash averages 585 mg/kg of rare earths; Powder River Basin ash contains around 330 mg/kg.27

The Department of Energy has funded multiple pilot projects, including a Wyoming extraction facility and Physical Sciences Inc.’s mobile processing units capable of producing battery-grade and high-purity rare earths.28 29 While commercial viability remains unproven at scale, the sheer volume of existing coal ash—already excavated and concentrated—represents a potential game-changer.

Beyond traditional and recycling sources, researchers are developing biological extraction methods. “Phytomining” uses hyperaccumulator plants to concentrate metals from low-grade sources. Certain fern species can absorb rare earths at 1,000 times their soil concentration.

While still largely experimental, these approaches could eventually provide a sustainable extraction pathway for dispersed rare earth sources that are uneconomical for conventional mining.30

The narrative that “China always wins” in rare earths ignores instructive exceptions. Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths has built the only significant non-Chinese rare earth supply chain—and understanding why reveals critical lessons.

The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) coordinates 15 allied nations on critical mineral investment. But the track record is mixed. Lynas succeeded where American Molycorp failed for specific, replicable reasons:

Lynas currently produces approximately 10,500 metric tons of rare earth oxides annually—including critical heavy rare earths—at its Malaysian facility.31 The company operates three integrated facilities: the Mount Weld mine (Australia), a new Kalgoorlie processing plant (Australia’s first, largest outside China), and the Kuantan separation facility in Malaysia.32

Key success factors:

• Geological advantage: Mount Weld ore grades average 6.4% rare earth oxide—among the world’s richest deposits—making extraction profitable even at depressed prices.33

• Japanese partnership: Sojitz Corporation’s €450 million offtake agreement in 2011 provided crucial financing and demand certainty when capital markets had abandoned the sector.

• Geographic arbitrage: Malaysian processing offered lower labor and energy costs while maintaining access to Asian markets. (Though this is changing—Lynas is now building Australian processing to reduce geopolitical risk.)

• Government protection: Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board blocked Chinese acquisition attempts on security grounds.34

Molycorp, by contrast, attempted to rebuild Mountain Pass with inferior ore grades (4.1%), no secured offtake agreements, and no protection from Chinese price manipulation. When China flooded the market in 2014-2015, Molycorp had no cushion. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2015, selling assets that had cost $1.6 billion for just $20.5 million.

The lesson: friend-shoring works when it combines geological advantage, demand security, and strategic patience. Throwing money at marginal deposits without these elements simply feeds Chinese market manipulation.

Beyond Lynas, several allied projects are advancing:

• MP Materials (US): Mountain Pass mine restarted production; Texas magnet facility began NdPr metal production in January 2025 with DoD backing.5

• USA Rare Earth (US): Stillwater, Oklahoma processing facility commissioning Q1 2026.

• GM + VAC (US): Joint venture magnet factory in South Carolina.

• Serra Verde (Brazil): First facility outside Asia producing all rare earth elements, operational 2024.

• Peak Resources (Tanzania): Ngualla project with 4.18% REO grades.

• Pensana (Angola): UK-backed processing facility.

• Iluka (Australia): Eneabba separation facility backed by A$1.65 billion government loan.

Yet most of these projects remain in development, and none has achieved profitable operation at scale without government support. Many also depend on downstream Chinese processing—meaning ore ultimately flows to China for refining.

China’s rare earth dominance rests partly on what might be called “environmental arbitrage”—the ability to ignore the toxic costs of processing.

Rare earth processing generates approximately 1.4 tons of radioactive waste per ton of rare earths produced, containing thorium with a half-life of 14 billion years. Chinese operations have created acknowledged “cancer villages” near processing facilities and an estimated $5.5 billion in cleanup costs from illegal mining alone.

Western companies can’t—and shouldn’t—match this. But the cost differential creates a structural disadvantage: Chinese production runs at roughly one-third the cost of environmentally responsible alternatives.35

The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which imposes levies on imported goods based on carbon emissions, offers a template. Currently covering steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizers, electricity, and hydrogen, CBAM does not yet extend to critical minerals.

Policy analysts have proposed expanding CBAM-style mechanisms to critical minerals like lithium, nickel, and graphite. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act (2024) empowers the Commission to establish rules for calculating environmental footprints of critical raw materials—a precursor to potential carbon-based import restrictions.

If the U.S. and EU mandated that permanent magnets meet specific environmental standards—radioactive waste limits, carbon intensity thresholds, worker safety requirements—it could effectively “tax” Chinese production out of the Western market, leveling the economic playing field for cleaner alternatives.36

This wouldn’t happen overnight. WTO compatibility concerns, data verification challenges, and developing-country pushback (CBAM is already controversial in Africa as “kicking away the ladder”) would require careful navigation. But it represents a policy lever that doesn’t require 15 years of mine development.

The gap between Chinese and Western development timelines isn’t mysterious—it’s structural:

The U.S. average timeline from mineral exploration to production is 29 years—the world’s second-longest after Panama.15 Even with recent permitting streamlining efforts under the Inflation Reduction Act, the gap remains enormous.

China’s acceleration came through mechanisms unavailable to democracies: centralized land acquisition, minimal environmental review, state-subsidized capital with infinite patience, and willingness to accept worker casualties and community devastation.

The answer isn’t to replicate China’s approach. It’s to change the game entirely.37

The standard narrative frames rare earth competition as a mining race the U.S. has already lost. That framing guarantees continued dependency.

A more productive framework recognizes three parallel tracks:38

• Continue supporting allied mining projects (Australia, Brazil, Africa)

• Fund domestic processing capacity (MP Materials, Lynas USA)

• Build strategic stockpiles for defense applications

• Secure Ukraine and other emerging sources through commercial agreements

• Mandate e-waste collection and rare earth recovery

• Fund magnet-to-magnet recycling at scale

• Support coal ash extraction pilots to commercial scale

• Create producer responsibility requirements for EV batteries and wind turbines

• Accelerate iron nitride and other rare-earth-free magnet technologies

• Fund motor redesign for ferrite and alternative magnets

• Support materials substitution research across defense applications

• Create procurement preferences for rare-earth-free components

The critical insight: Track 3 is where America has competitive advantage. The U.S. cannot match China’s willingness to poison communities and subsidize uneconomic production. But it can out-engineer them.

A critical distinction often lost in rare earth panic: defense applications represent a small volume but high criticality slice of demand. Civilian EVs, wind turbines, and consumer electronics dominate total magnet consumption—over ~85% of the market.*39

This matters strategically. Critics will argue that military systems cannot substitute away from rare earths—and they’re partially right. Defense specifications are conservative, validation cycles span years, and performance margins are non-negotiable.

But you don’t need to solve defense first to break China’s leverage.

If civilian markets shift to rare-earth-free alternatives, overall demand fragments. When Tesla, BMW, and GM diversify across iron nitride, EESM, and ferrite architectures, China’s ability to weaponize supply evaporates. Prices stabilize. The defense sector—which can afford premium pricing for secure supply—faces a much smaller problem: sourcing limited quantities at whatever cost, rather than competing with global EV production for constrained supply.

Civilian substitution indirectly solves the defense problem by destroying China’s pricing power.40

*Industry estimates; Adamas Intelligence, IEA

The U.S. government is uniquely positioned to accelerate substitution—not by mandating specific technologies, but by guaranteeing demand.

Historically, American industrial leadership in jet engines, semiconductors, GPS, and composite materials all scaled first through defense procurement before civilian adoption. The DoD absorbed early cost premiums, de-risked scale-up investment, and signaled long-term demand certainty.

The same playbook applies here. The DoD does not need rare-earth-free systems tomorrow. It needs to guarantee demand for substitution technologies today.41

MP Materials’ $400 million DoD equity stake and guaranteed price floor demonstrates this model. Extending it—long-term offtake agreements for iron nitride magnets, procurement preferences for EESM-equipped vehicles, stockpile purchases of domestically recycled rare earths—would compress the innovation timeline without requiring technological mandates.

A sophisticated reader will ask: what happens when China responds?

Possible countermeasures include: China investing in iron nitride or SRM intellectual property; flooding markets again to kill alternatives; or imposing export controls on non-REE inputs like gallium and graphite (which it has already begun).

None of these fundamentally alter the calculus:

Iron, nitrogen, and copper lack choke points. These are globally abundant commodities with diversified supply chains. There is no “iron OPEC” for China to leverage.42

Market flooding no longer works if cost curves genuinely flip. When EESM motors are 10-15% cheaper over lifetime and iron nitride facilities require 4x less capital, temporary price drops cannot reverse structural economics. Molycorp died because it was competing on China’s terms. The new technologies compete on different terms entirely.

IP capture does not recreate processing monopolies. Even if Chinese firms develop iron nitride capabilities, they cannot monopolize iron and nitrogen the way they monopolized rare earth processing. The strategic asymmetry disappears.

Converting analysis into action requires specific policy moves:

1. Amend Buy American provisions to include rare-earth-free procurement preferences for federal vehicles and equipment

2. Mandate magnet recovery in federal e-waste streams—military bases, government offices, and federal contractors generate substantial recyclable material

3. Fund 3-5 parallel non-REE motor architectures through ARPA-E and DoD—iron nitride, EESM, SRM, and advanced ferrite designs should all receive development support to avoid single-technology risk

4. Expand Section 48C tax credits specifically for substitution technologies, not just domestic rare earth processing

5. Direct DoD to sign long-term offtake agreements for non-REE magnets, providing demand certainty that enables commercial scale-up

6. Establish carbon border adjustments for permanent magnets based on processing emissions, leveling the field against Chinese environmental arbitrage

7. Create producer responsibility mandates for EV batteries and wind turbines, requiring end-of-life magnet recovery

These are not radical interventions. They are the same industrial policy tools that built American aerospace, semiconductor, and internet dominance—applied to a sector where the U.S. currently lags.

The hundreds of pounds of rare earths in every F-35 will continue flowing primarily from China for the foreseeable future. Greenland’s deposits will remain frozen in both senses. Ukraine’s minerals await peace and a decade of development.

But if Niron Magnetics’ iron nitride technology scales to automotive applications by 2028-2030—as current timelines suggest—and if Tesla and others prove ferrite-based motors commercially viable, the strategic calculus changes fundamentally. Add scaled recycling from the growing e-waste stream and eventual coal ash extraction, and the dependency picture transforms.

The path forward isn’t acquiring territory. It’s rendering the territory irrelevant.

China spent three decades building processing infrastructure, training specialized workforces, and accepting environmental costs that Western democracies will not tolerate. Replicating this requires patient, sustained investment measured in decades—and still wouldn’t solve the fundamental problem.

The alternative—moving toward a “rare-earth-free” or “recycle-first” economy—plays to American strengths in materials science, engineering innovation, and venture-backed commercialization. It doesn’t require executive orders to move mountains. It requires consistent R&D funding, smart procurement policy, and the patience to let engineering solve what geology cannot.

The rare earth mirage persists because politicians prefer announcing territorial ambitions to funding materials research. The former makes headlines; the latter makes progress.43

Ziya Esrefoglu, PhD is an independent consultant focused on data visualization and technical analysis.

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44. Nick Carey and Paul Lienert, “BMW, Stellantis advance rare-earth-free motor technologies,” Reuters, November 2023.

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