With the escalation in trade war talks between Washington and Beijing this is not that surprising to see. Over the last 12 months according to the PRC the exports measured in tonnes is

In May the amount exported was only a little over 46 tonnes and was right before the talks between the US and China in London when Beijing had agreed to expedite rare earth export permits.

What makes rare earth magnets so important is they are one of the strongest, highest energy density, and most importantly permanent magnets available. Given there name is rare earth elements people tend to think that they are actually rare when that is not the case at all. Instead the issue boils down to they are found in trace amounts everywhere with only small and specific "pockets" that are economical to mine. Since China has a strangle hold on this industry the economics of this are always depending on whether China decides to flood the market or not.

To combat this the US, has for better or worse, moved to invest and shore up the single operational mine in the US as well as the other companies that are moving to develop new mines. Current mines are also looking into possible recovery for rare earths as well with Cleveland-Cliffs yesterday announcing they were looking into it. Even mine waste and coal ash have become targets for rare earths recovery and in these processes these two historically dirty and even toxic leftovers could be cleaned up or at a minimum made much cleaner for the environment.

With magnet plants under construction and mining for these minerals only increasing the U.S. must now move to focus on building out a refining ability. Rare earth refining is a very very dirty process and consumes 22 more times the amount of energy and water then it does to just mine them. The most common way of refining also deals heavily in hydrofluoric and sulfuric acids. Creating a ton of additional waste in the acids.

Luckily the US has been also investing in this to create cleaner and hopefully more efficient refining techniques to lower not only the cost but the harmful byproducts.