China’s export restrictions on seven key manufacturing materials exposed a glaring absence of commercial processing capacity with few fast fixes on tap.
It could take up to five years to develop a domestic supply chain to supplant China’s global monopoly in processing rare earths into materials needed to produce everything from iPhones to F-35 fighter jets.
While the United States has most of the 17 rare earth elements and 50 critical minerals underground, it has no industrial capacity to refine them into processed metals and magnets, according to Melissa “Mel” Sanderson, American Rare Earths board member and Critical Minerals Institute co-chair.
“Currently in the United States, we have zero magnet manufacturers,” Sanderson told The Epoch Times.
She said that’s why China imposed export restrictions on seven “heavy” rare earth elements on April 4 in response to President Donald Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement that boosted levies on China imports. After tit-for-tat tariff hikes, the United States is currently levying Chinese imports for 145 percent, with electronics exempted for now.
“I certainly hope, as the administration is working through this critical area—no pun intended, it’s a critical area—they realize there’s this vulnerability gap, a four to five year gap, no matter how you look at it, in terms of ramping up domestic production,” Sanderson said.
Trump’s April 2 order gives Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick 180 days to suggest how the federal government can help develop a “circular” domestic rare earth supply chain.
The president is also pondering an order allowing deep-sea mining and commercial stockpiling.
Whatever the administration does, with enough permit reform, deregulation, and public-private incentivizing, industry will respond, economist Antonio Graceffo told The Epoch Times.
“The short answer is if China bans the sale of rare earth minerals to the United States” permanently, “that’s a positive thing because it’s going to force the United States to find a solution,” he said.
An analyst who writes about U.S.–China trade relations for The Epoch Times, Graceffo said there are “tons of solutions” to building a domestic rare earth supply chain, including the ongoing negotiations with Ukraine.
“Absolutely, we can overcome the problem,” he said. “In the long run, it’s going to be much better if China cuts us off. [Industry] will definitely find a way.”
By John Haughey
