Overview

• April licensing requirements for seven medium and heavy rare earths have slowed approvals and worsened shortages for US defence and tech firms.
• President Trump accused China of breaching a 90-day tariff truce and is set to discuss critical minerals in an upcoming call with Xi Jinping.
• Production lines from Ford’s Chicago plant to Tesla’s Optimus robot have been disrupted by dwindling rare earth inventories.
• Washington has retaliated with export curbs on Chinese materials, tightened controls on jet engine parts and launched a Section 232 probe into mineral imports.
• The US Department of Defense plans a domestic mine-to-magnet supply chain by 2027, and MP Materials Corp has secured a joint venture in Saudi Arabia to expand rare earth production.