In advance of President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to South Korea later this month—where he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since 2019—China announced that it has expanded its restrictions on rare earth and permanent magnet exports. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s Announcement No. 61 of 2025 implements the strictest rare earth and permanent magnet export controls to date. The move both strengthens Beijing’s leverage in upcoming talks while also undercutting U.S. efforts to bolster its industrial base.
Q1: What is new about today’s rare earth and permanent magnet export restrictions?
A1: The new export controls mark the first time China has applied the foreign direct product rule (FDPR)—a mechanism introduced in 1959 and long used by Washington to restrict semiconductor exports to China. The FDPR enables the United States to regulate the sale of foreign-made products if they incorporate U.S. technology, software, or equipment, even when produced by non-U.S. companies abroad. In effect, if U.S. technology appears anywhere in the supply chain, Washington can assert jurisdiction.
Under the measures announced today, foreign firms will now be required to obtain Chinese government approval to export magnets that contain even trace amounts of Chinese-origin rare earth materials—or that were produced using Chinese mining, processing, or magnet-making technologies. The new licensing framework will apply to foreign-produced rare earth magnets and select semiconductor materials that contain at least 0.1 percent heavy rare earth elements sourced from China.
Given China’s dominance in the sector—accounting for roughly 70 percent of rare earth mining, 90 percent of separation and processing, and 93 percent of magnet manufacturing—these developments will have major national security implications.
Q2: What do the new restrictions mean for the defense and semiconductor industries?
A2: Rare earths are crucial for various defense technologies, including F-35 fighter jets, Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines, Tomahawk missiles, radar systems, Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, and the Joint Direct Attack Munition series of smart bombs. The United States is already struggling to keep pace in the production of these systems. Meanwhile, China is rapidly scaling up its munitions manufacturing capacity and acquiring advanced weapons platforms and equipment at a rate estimated to be five to six times faster than that of the United States.
The newly announced restrictions represent China’s most consequential measures to date targeting the defense sector. Under the new rules, starting December 1, 2025, companies with any affiliation to foreign militaries—including those of the United States—will be largely denied export licenses. The Ministry of Commerce also made clear that any requests to use rare earths for military purposes will be automatically rejected. In effect, the policy seeks to prevent direct or indirect contributions of Chinese-origin rare earths or related technologies to foreign defense supply chains.
Even before these latest measures, the U.S. defense industrial base faced significant challenges and had limited production capacity and limited ability to rapidly scale to meet rising defense technology needs. The new restrictions will only deepen these vulnerabilities, further widening the capability gap and allowing China to accelerate the expansion of its military strength at a faster pace than the United States at a time when tension is rising in the Indo-Pacific region.
Additionally, export license applications for rare earth materials used in highly advanced technologies, including sub-14-nanometer semiconductors, next-generation memory chips, semiconductor manufacturing or testing equipment, will now be subject to case-by-case review by Chinese authorities. Companies will likely need to provide detailed documentation on end users, technical specifications, and intended applications before any export is authorized. The individualized review process gives Chinese authorities significant discretion to delay, deny, or condition exports, effectively introducing a new layer of strategic control over the global supply of rare earth inputs critical to advanced computing and defense technologies.
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