GoKawiilUS rare earths produced by Washington-backed companies are flowing to Japan and South Korea, as American demand has yet to materialize despite the Trump administration’s push to develop a national supply chain.
Rare earths products produced by MP Materials, Energy Fuels and Phoenix Tailings—which together have won billions of dollars in US government support—are being sold to companies in Asia, where the scale of magnet manufacturing remains larger than the nascent production in the US.
China’s lock on global supplies of rare earths and critical minerals has become a national security concern in the US and other Western nations, since Beijing started restricting access to them. The metals are crucial to 21st-century technology and are used in the manufacturing of everything from weapons guidance systems to electric vehicle batteries.
Nick Myers, chief executive of Phoenix Tailings, said Japanese customers were “clamoring” for the rare earth metals it produces, given the dramatic cut in exports of the materials from China this year.
The start-up’s customers were “primarily in Korea and Japan,” he said. “Unless the [US defense] primes move quickly, I will sell out… other companies are paying top dollar faster.”
Phoenix, backed by a CIA-funded venture capital firm named IQT, is scaling up production but is not yet a significant producer and does not disclose sales figures.
A host of US companies have outlined plans to mine rare earths and produce magnets domestically, but the industry will take time to grow, experts said.
“Today, there are two countries where [neodymium iron boron] magnets are produced at scale. One is Japan, the originator, and one is China,” said Thomas Kruemmer, author of the Rare Earth Observer blog. The magnets are used in everything from cars to fighter jets and the semiconductor industry.
MP Materials is the leading US rare earths producer by a wide margin. The Nevada-based company’s sales of neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) oxide and metal—its largest division by revenue—were “primarily generated” under MP’s agreement with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas, which distributes the material to Japanese customers, its latest quarterly earnings show.