The United States’ multibillion-dollar campaign to loosen China’s grip on critical minerals is beginning to reshape supply chains, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Washington’s effort to back mines, processing plants and magnet makers through equity stakes, loans, price guarantees and offtake supports has accelerated after China imposed export controls on key rare earth elements in April 2025, the Journal says in a roundup of the strategy on Tuesday.
More than 180 critical-minerals-related projects have since been advanced by the Trump administration, while U.S. government non-equity investment in rare earth and magnet projects reached $7.6 billion in the 18 months through June, more than four times the amount from 2020 through 2024, the New York-based news outlet reported.
Policy gains
The significance is that Washington is no longer relying mainly on grants or permitting reform. Its emerging model tackles several problems at once: high construction costs, exposure to low prices, uncertainty over customers and the shortage of processing and manufacturing capacity between mine output and finished products.
The clearest example is the Pentagon’s purchase of $400 million of MP Materials’ (NYSE: MP) preferred shares. It also provided a $150-million loan while guaranteeing a $110-per-kg floor price for neodymium-praseodymium products and buyers for magnets from a planned second plant in Texas.
Lithium Americas (TSX, NYSE: LAC) is receiving similar backing for Thacker Pass in Nevada. The project has a $2.23-billion loan from the Department of Energy, which also holds warrants equivalent to a 5% stake in Lithium Americas and a separate 5% non-voting interest in the project joint venture. Thacker Pass is 62% owned by Lithium Americas and 38% by General Motors.
Energy Fuels
Energy Fuels (TSX: EFR; NYSE-A: UUUU) received a conditional $725-million loan commitment in June from the U.S. Office of Strategic Capital to expand rare earth and critical-minerals production and processing.
The strategy is also extending offshore. Washington has struck more than two dozen mineral-development agreements with countries including Australia, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Uzbekistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Journal’s tally of government-backed transactions includes USA Rare Earth (Nasdaq: USAR), Korea Zinc (KRX: 010130) and Sunrise Energy Metals (ASX: SRL).
China nevertheless retains commanding positions in the mining, separation and refining of several strategic materials, and rebuilding Western capacity could take a decade or more.
But London-based commodities research and consulting firm CRU projects China will lose market share by 2030 in several areas it now dominates, suggesting the U.S. push is beginning to create the alternative supply chains Washington has sought for years.
Source: https://www.mining.com/us-minerals-push-starts-to-dent-chinas-grip-wsj/
